There was a discussion here a few weeks ago that centered on image-based backups for entire VMs vs data-based backups of applications only. My recollection is that most of us smaller guys prefer (or at least lean toward) the image-based variety, and the bigger, more mature orgs prefer data backups.
I'm going to offer an example of the utility of image-based backups for small shops. My IT department consists of one other admin and me. We support a fairly complex IT environment for a company of our diminutive size. We recently went whole hog into MSCRM (on-premises), and our developers (we have more of them than IT staff) are working hard to customize it to suit the company's needs. Today I had to roll back a CRM org database to an earlier point in time for the devs, and at first blush it appeared to be a successful endeavor. Some funky issues arose, however, so I was faced with a difficult problem and no clear direction on how to solve it. (MSCRM is an enormous beast, btw.) Long story short, having the ability to (almost) immediately spin up a brand new, sandboxed copy of the CRM server allowed me to experiment and figure out how to resolve the problem without touching the one the devs actually use. This helped me document the proper fix and apply it in their environment in (literally) a few minutes. I could not have done this without the benefits of A) virtualization and B) the ability to create an exact clone of the affected machine. There are lots of benefits to virtualization, and private clouds, and all of the rest of the buzzwords currently on the IT bingo cards. But, to me, the greatest of these accrue to rank and file admins when confronted with the kind of situation I faced today. It's really cool stuff that could not have been accomplished quickly without virtualization *and* image-based backups. PS Full disclosure. I also do native SQL backups of the CRM databases within the VMs, and the restoration of one of these in SQL Management Studio was an integral part of the final solution. I guess this is a blended/hybrid solution, but it wouldn't have been easy without being able to instantly create a sandbox to test in, and that's an example of the power of image-based backups for the small IT shop.
