OVF used for backup and restore?

Hello,

I am brand new to the OVF Tool and am currently reading the documentation and experimenting with the utility.

I would like to know if the OVF Tool is a good utility for performing VM backups (copies) in a vSphere environment.

It is not clear, if that is one of the intended uses of the OVF Tool.

How would one accomplish this (backup and restore later) with the OVF Tool command line utility?

1)  Convert vmx config file to ovf (what happens to the original vmx file and the vmdk, vmxf, nvram, etc... files?)

Once you have an ovf package, what is the best way to import it (restore the VM)?  If you use the "Deploy OVF Template" feature in vSphere client, does it launch a wizard that prompts you for all the required meta configuration?  Do you need to remember certain config settings from when you created the OVF package?

Thanks for any insight as I come up to speed with the OVF Tool.

Thanks,

Bryan