How do the backup and restore processes work?

Steelgate first contacts the ESX(i) or vSphere server and begins a snapshot of the Virtual Machine(s) that are being backed up. After that is completed, Steelgate then starts to stage the Virtual Machine to a temporary location on the local machine Steelgate is installed on. This temporary location is configured in the Advanced Settings tab of the Default Settings that can be accessed on the Home tab of the Steelgate software, a restart of the Steelgate service is needed to apply the change, if this folder is changed. The temporary file that is created in this folder will have an extension of ".nvm" in a Vdata folder for each selected Virtual Machine in the backup job.

Finally, Steelgate will backup this temporary file to the device that is selected in the backup job and once that has completed, the temporary files will be cleaned up. The restore operation of the Steelgate first restores the Virtual Machine to the temporary file that it was originally backed up as. Steelgate will then contact the ESX(i) or vSphere server, and tell the server to create a Virtual Machine with the parameters that the original Virtual Machine was backed up with. Next, Steelgate will stream the Virtual Machine to the server. Once that is done Steelgate will then do clean up on both the ESX(i) or vSphere server along with the temporary file it created during the restore.