With an email to its VI and vSphere customers last week VMware announced the end of life (EOL) for its Consolidated Backup (VCB) framework.
The company informs that the next version of vSphere, due later this year, will not support VCB and will solely rely on the new vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) introduced with vSphere 4.0.
VCB binaries will be still available and supported on VI 3.x and vSphere 4.0 according to the support policy, but they will not be included in the new platform.
VMware is saying its Data Recovery product already supports VADP, and that most partners focused on backup/restore already support it too (if you are one of those vendors feel free to list your product in the comments).
VMware also promises that more vendors will offer VADP-based solutions in time for the next vSphere release.