The Virtual Disk API and vSphere

The virtual disk development kit (VDDK) is an SDK to help developers create applications that access storage on virtual machines. The VDDK package is based on the virtual disk API, introduced in this chapter.

The VMware Storage APIs – Data Protection (VADP) use the virtual disk API and a subset of vSphere APIs to take snapshots of virtual machines running on ESXi, enabling full or incremental backup and restore. VADP replaces VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB).