VMware vSAN does not provide any backup/restore capabilities of its own. Therefore it relies on existing data protection solutions like Dell EMC Avamar Virtual Edition (AVE) backup software or any other vSphere compatible 3rd party backup application. AVE is not part of the licenses bundled with VxRail and thus needs to be purchased separately. AVE requires the deployment of virtual backup appliances on top of vSphere.

No specific integration exists between VMware vSAN and Dell EMC AVE.

VMwares free-of-charge backup software that comes with any vSphere license, VMware vSphere Data Protection (VDP), has been declared End-of-Availability and is not supported for VMware vSphere 6.7 and up.

VMware is working on native vSAN data protection, which is currently still in beta and expected to go live in the first half of 2019.

The following 3rd party Data Protection partner products are certified with vSAN 6.7:
- Cohesity DataProtect 6.1
- CommVault 11
- Dell EMC Avamar 18.1
- Dell EMC NetWorker 18.1
- Hitachi Data Instance Director 6.7
- Rubrik Cloud Data Management 4.2
- Veeam Backup&Replication 9.5 U4a
- Veritas NetBackup 8.1.2