Let me start by saying I have a single 2003 Small Business Server running as a VM in a VShere HA cluster acting as my DC. I know this is not a good scenario. The new VMWare HA cluster was the first step to moving toward a better solution. I needed a good hardware platform 1st however.
That said, how are you guys backing up DC's in VMware environments? I can go file level or VM level with my current Unitrends solution. File level gives me more control and a smaller backup foot print however the restore procedure is more complex. A VM backup looks like a quicker restore however I have read it is not supported by Microsoft. The backup foot print is much larger as well since it seems to backup the entire VM, free space and all (storage is thick provisioned). Since I am running a single DC I would not run into replication issues in this...