Hi,

  While that is one "possible" use for the clone procedure, it is not the intended use.  Cloning is done with the VM shut down so if you can actually shut down your Exchange system, this would serve your DR needs.

  Otherwise you would need to implement a script based "hot" backup or use one of the 3rd party backup agents that does this.  In these cases you only get what VMware calls a "crash consistent" backup, meaning that the file may not be exactly perfect because changes were being made while it was getting backed up.

  The recommended solution is to back up your Exchange system as you would on normal hardware, with backup agents inside of the VM.

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We do both types of backups.  We back up the VMDK files associated with our Exchange server after a change is made and at intervals when we can take the Exchange server offline, and we also have the Backup Exec Remote Agent for Exchange running inside the VM and backing up to a separate Backup Exec server.  That way if the Exchange server fails completely we should be able to restore the VMDK files and then restore the latest datastore to the restored VM.

After I posted this I thought it might not be wise to run exchange in a VM, so it's good to see your responses, and that people are doing this.

I'm curious what is required to recover, I know this is a VMware forum, but if the stores and logs are on a SAN, then isn't it feasible to simply restore the VM and reconnect the same drives to the SAN?  

I agree that normal tape backup is necessary, but if a copy of a VM can be restored, then exchange will be running, and should recover once the SAN is attached.

There is also VSS to consider.....