Reading Time: 2 minutes Since version 4.x, VMware vSphere provides native API to perform image level backup of running VMs: VMware vSphere Storage APIs – Data Protection (formerly known as VMware vStorage APIs for Data Protection or VADP). Those API are based on VMware snapshot to create a readable base VMDK disk that can be easily copied by a compatible backup solution using a full transfer or using incremental transfer with Changed Block Tracking (CBT) feature.