One of the cheap options may be the following:
- vSphere Essentials (3x2 CPU Hosts and vCenter Essentials) which is around 430,- EUR plus 60,- 1Y Supscription
- Veeam B&R Essentials Standard (2CPU Bundle) including 1Y support. If your source ESXi have only one Socket a single Veeam B&R Std. instead of the Essentials maybe a few bucks less ...
- Take notice that Veeam have to run on a windows system (VM should be fine). There are new Vendors like Nakivo and others around and some of them offer free versions (Up to 5 VMs)
With Veeam and a lot of other Backup/Replication Programs you only need to license the Host which the software is reading from. The target host which youre replicate/restore to dont need a veeam license.
With Veeam you can replicate your VM while it is up and running.
Regards,
Joerg