First time posting here. A consulting firm setup the VMware, servers, SAN for me 2 years ago, I've been administering everything since - since i work for a 50 person small-med sized business, i wear multiple hats, one of them is Sys Admin for our 6 servers, helpdesk/desktop sup for 2 remote offices, (exchange, voip, citrix, sql environment). I have a Unitrends backup DPU which as served me well. I take archive drives off-site each night that would get me back online in the event of a fire or other natural/man-made distaster. I've since found a better outsourced IT group that does not sell/support Unitrends (my backup solution), so if a disaster occurs, i would not only have to overnight server blades, cisco switches, but also a 10k+ unitrends box which i may not want (with new tech out there). So my purpose for this project is to shorten my recovery time from a disaster.
My plan: Have VMware dump VMDK, OVA (or some flat file i can spin up on an esxi server off-site) to a folder that is replicated using r-sync (if linux) or syncrify if windows. I can't replicate it directly from my SAN, so VMware support suggested an NFS drive, but said to look into OVA exports as well. I understand you can't do file-level restore with an OVA, but I dont need that.
I've spoken with VMware support and the tech gave me two suggestions, although said developing automated scripts was considered professional services which i'm not oposed to, but I do want to learn more about this, so i'm going to do as much as I can on my own.
Here's one of powerCLI script info the vmware support rep provided.
https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/PowerCLI/PowerCLI41/html/Copy-HardDisk.html
TL:DR - Whats the quickest/easiest way to export/backup VMware servers for DR