Embodiments of the present invention provide efficient and cost-effective systems and methods for backing up and recovering a virtual machine and application data therein. Embodiments of the present invention can be used to satisfy near-zero RPOs by providing more recovery points for backups in virtual machine environments, while also providing increased granularity for recovery (i.e., single virtual disk, single file, etc.) and maintaining central management capabilities and back up efficiencies offered by virtual machine-level backups.