Continuous data protection not restricted to vSphere: physical, cloud and virtual machines alike can be replicated, with VMware vSphere hosts or clusters as the destination. Each source runs Veeam's CDP Agent Service and CDP Volume Filter Driver in place of a VAIO filter.
Also called universal continuous data protection.
Read more: Veeam Help Center
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Universal CDP in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Continuous Data Protection
Replicates vSphere VMs by capturing every write through VAIO, with no snapshots, so the RPO is nearly zero and replicas can start at once. (Unrelated to Cisco Discovery Protocol.)
- vSphere
VMware's platform for virtualisation, made up of vCenter and ESX hosts, supplying compute for VCF clusters.
- Physical
Describes the concrete, real-world parts that put a logical architecture into effect.
- Virtual machines
Infrastructure-as-a-service compute giving complete control of the operating system, making it a fit for lift-and-shift moves and for software relying on OS-level pieces like COM.
- Agents (classic) API
First-generation Foundry Agent Service API, based on threads, messages and runs. It is deprecated, replaced by conversations and responses, and retires on 31 March 2027.
- CDP
Cisco Discovery Protocol lets an administrator see which port on a physical switch each host uplink is cabled to. vSphere supports it on distributed and standard switches alike, while LLDP requires a distributed switch.
- Agent
A specialised form of Microsoft Copilot set up for one particular job, pairing instructions with knowledge and skills. You can create one in Copilot Studio, SharePoint or Agent Builder, and administrators control them from the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Volume
Holds non-tabular files sitting in cloud storage under Unity Catalog governance, addressed as
/Volumes/<catalog>/<schema>/<volume>. A volume can be external or managed, andWRITE VOLUMEorREAD VOLUMEdecide who may use it.
Related terms
- Veeam CDP Agent Service
Part of Universal CDP on each protected source computer. Working with the volume filter driver, it captures and handles the stream of I/O between operating system kernel and disks so it can be sent to the replica.
- Veeam CDP Volume Filter Driver
Sits at volume level on each Universal CDP source machine, intercepting writes and handing them to the CDP agent service so they can be replicated.