I just installed esXpress 3.0 rc3 in our ESX 3.0 test lab. Among bugfixes and smaller extra features, restore options have now been added to the text based console menu. This is just one of the many restore options that will be available. Restores using the GUI and in a VBA is coming soon. Restores in a VBA will shift the load from the ESX console to a helper virtual machine.

In this release (rc3) you can restore through the ESX console. This is done by launching the phd program from the ESX console.

What you see above is the available backups for a virtual machine called xmoss. We take a backup of this machine every night (differentials). That allows me to restore the most recent virtual machine state but also those of previous days.