Currently most of my VMs deployed on an ESXi server is in the form of linked clones from several base VMs. Now for DR purposes I'm planning on replicating the VMs to another datastore. However, I have yet to discover a replication solution that works for linked clones.
Specifically, I'd like to have the target datastore contains the exact directory structure as that of the source datastore, preserving all relationships between the linked clones. Current solutions, while "work" with linked clones, can only replicate the VMs as full clones, thus generate excessive duplicated data and destroy the inheritance relationships.
Because I'm using local storage for my current ESXi server, array based solution does not apply here.
Scripts, virtual appliances, or external servers can all be considered. Any suggestion?