Veeam Data Platform now supports agentless, host-level, image-based backup for HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software. The general availability brings HPE’s offering on level terms with its rivals such as VMware, Nutanix and Microsoft.
Organizations evaluating VMware alternatives have had no shortage of options since Broadcom’s acquisition changed the pricing landscape. HPE’s answer is HPE Morpheus VM Essentials, a KVM-based virtualization platform that became generally available in early 2025 as a direct vSphere alternative, scalable to tens of thousands of VMs. Data protection is now expanded by Veeam, taking on Cohesity and Commvault which also support HPE’s solution.
With the HPE Morpheus plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication version 13.0.1 or later, customers can perform host-based image-level backups of HVM virtual machines. This is possible without installing agents inside individual VMs. Veeam integrates directly with the HVM hypervisor and the HPE Morpheus VM Essentials control plane. Improvements made for other hypervisors now apply fully to HPE’s offering. Veeam Data Platform v13, released in November, for example, expanded hypervisor support as part of a broader push toward more security and flexibility options.
What the integration delivers
The feature set covers the essentials enterprises tend to need. Changed Block Tracking (CBT) enables faster incremental backups with reduced read I/O on production VMs. Full VM restore into HVM is supported, including from backups originally taken on other hypervisor types, a useful capability for organizations mid-migration. Cross-hypervisor recovery to other supported platforms is also available, as are application-aware processing with VSS integration and file-level recovery for Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory, and Oracle.
Transport modes include NBD (Network Block Device) and HotAdd. Datastores supported are GFS2, NFS, and there is integration with the HPE Alletra Storage MP plug-in. Backup encryption and guest file indexing round out the feature list. For disaster recovery, workloads can be recovered to AWS or Microsoft Azure, so organizations are not locked into a single recovery target.
Broader partnership
This release builds on top of previous announcements. In December, Veeam and HPE expanded their partnership with five new integrations covering data resilience, backup, and cybersecurity in hybrid cloud environments. The image-based backup support for HPE Morpheus VM Essentials was first announced as an upcoming capability in June 2025; today’s GA release now offers it in full.
In essence, HPE needs native support like this to establish itself as an increasingly serious VMware alternative. Given the KVM-based nature of its hypervisor and HPE’s focus on working with multiple VM providers, the Veeam support means migrations can continue without needing to switch backup providers as well.