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Archives for January 2009

DataCore Software Touts Americas Distribution Agreement with Ingram Micro

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DataCore Software today announced that they have entered into a distribution agreement with Ingram Micro, the world’s largest technology distributor. Under terms of the agreement Ingram Micro will distribute DataCore’s full line of software solutions throughout North and South America.

DataCore solves the storage riddle begged by server and desktop virtualization: “How can I overcome the storage bottleneck, performance and high availability challenges that become critical when many servers or desktops are consolidated into but a few physical machines, without blowing my budget for this virtualization project?”

DataCore storage virtualization solutions run on any standard physical or virtual server, and are ideally suited for virtual machine and virtual desktop environments.  Providing true, auto-failover/failback high-availability at prices starting under $10,000 (MSRP), they are affordable to SMB customers, but scale to meet the needs of even the most demanding enterprise customers.

In SANmelody, DataCore provides a cost-effective, feature rich SAN solution that includes automated storage management, high availability, disaster recovery and thin provisioning. SANsymphony is DataCore’s enterprise solution that enables Continuous Data Protection (CDP) and meets the advanced needs of larger organizations in terms of capacity, performance and scalability.

ServInt Adds Virtualization To Dedicated Server Line-Up

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ServInt today introduced its new line of Dedicated Server solutions that incorporate a virtualization layer.

The virtualization layer enables easier off-server backup. It also enables better scalability by facilitating easy movement of server content from one hardware environment to another, with little downtime. The benefit of the virtualization layer also increases redundancy, as it makes the Dedicated Server comparatively easy to rebuild in case of hardware failure.

Over the years, ServInt experts have performed thousands of Dedicated Server customizations. That experience was critical in developing a virtualization layer that is superior to competing offerings. ServInt’s new line of Dedicated Servers is comprised of six offerings, each of which includes the virtualization layer by default.

Release: ToutVirtual VirtualIQ Pro 3

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ToutVirtual, which develops software for managing virtual computing products, announced that it has upgraded its VirtualIQ Pro product. The firm’s software is used by system administrators to manage virtual servers from VMware, Xen, Microsoft, and others.

ToutVirtual said the upgraded VirtualIQ Pro 3 product adds new auditing features to track physical asset and non-virtual asset changes; an integrated administration console; analysis of migration from physical to virtual servers; along with other features.

VirtualIQ Pro software supports unlimited number of CPU sockets and unlimited virtual machines. Several pricing levels for VirtualIQ Pro are available based on CPU socket and VM support. As a quick-start or test drive, VirtualIQ Pro for up to 5 CPU sockets or 25 virtual machines is available for free download. Pricing starts at $199 per CPU socket per year.

Release: Vizioncore vOptimizer Pro

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Vizioncore today announced the general availability of vOptimizer Pro, which enables customers to reclaim over-allocated and unused space in Windows virtual machines. vOptimizer Pro also automates storage reclamation from Windows guest operating systems in order to reduce storage requirements and improve virtual machine performance and was a finalist at the Best of VMworld Awards 2008.

Typically 50 to 80 percent of a virtual machine’s footprint is unused space allocated at the initial point of provisioning. vOptimizer Pro allows customers to reclaim this storage capacity by inspecting the virtual machine’s file system and subsequently resizing the partition while also streamlining the guest operating system. Freespace quotas allow administrators to specify the amount of storage headroom required by different categories of virtual machines. These are rules that can automatically reduce and/or increase volume size.

Vizioncore vOptimizer Pro is now available from Vizioncore’s worldwide channel partner network. vOptimizer Pro is available at an SRP of $299 per socket.

Release: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta is the beta release of the stand-alone hypervisor based product Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, first released in September 2008.

The new Beta contains the same virtualization feature-set as Hyper-V that is part of Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta.  Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 can be downloaded here and now includes:

  • Processor and memory support: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta now supports up to 8-socket physical systems and provides support for up to 32-cores.  In addition, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta supports up to 1TB of RAM on a physical system.

  • Updated Hyper-V Configuration Utility: The Hyper-V Configuration utility is designed to simplify the most common initial configuration tasks.  It helps you configure the initial configuration settings without having to type long command-line strings.  New configuration options have been added for R2 Beta including:

    • Remote Management Configuration

    • Failover Clustering Configuration

    • Additional options for Updates

  • Failover Clustering: The initial release of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 did not include support for failover clustering.  However, with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta, host clustering technology is included to enable support for unplanned downtime.
  • Live migration: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 includes support for live migration. Live migration enables customers to move running applications between servers without service interruptions.

With live migration and failover clustering, customers receive high availability and dynamic migration capabilities for both planned and unplanned downtime.