Robin Wauters

AutoVirt, provider of file virtualization and data management solutions, today announced that A&W Food Services of Canada, one of Canada‘s largest and fastest growing restaurant chains, is implementing a virtualized file storage environment with AutoVirt.

The AutoVirt solution was chosen to replace existing StorageX technology, as AutoVirt offered a more advanced and easier to use solution for the management of backend corporate file systems, over the soon to be end-of-lifed StorageX technology.  A&W’s new virtualized environment, which will come online without any disruption to users, will enable A&W to completely reorganize its file environment for streamlined backup, retention and security policies, leading to tremendous improvements in operational efficiency and dramatic cost savings.

When Bruce Jamieson, the company’s Network Systems Manager, joined the Corporate IT Department about five years ago, he inherited a number of challenges, especially in regards to the company’s backend file storage environment.  The file system had very little structure, making it impossible for Jamieson to separate the relatively few files that required specialized policy-based treatment from the rest of the data.  As a result, Jamieson needed to apply the same expensive backup, retention and security policies to all the files in his environment.  Jamieson needed to find a solution that would enable him to clean up, and then more easily manage the company’s backend corporate file data.  After an extremely successful server virtualization initiative, he was sold on the value of virtualization and decided to apply a virtualization solution to his file infrastructure as well.

Jamieson also plans to leverage AutoVirt’s file virtualization capabilities to consolidate how his users view and access their files, making it easier for them to find what they are looking for.  Jamieson will be able to archive unused files to lower-cost SATA drives, shrink A&W’s backup window, and apply appropriate retention policies to data after users leave the company. These activities all result in hard and soft savings across disk, tape, hardware, software and operational processes.

Extreme Networks today announced highly scalable 40 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) network solutions.

The VIM3-40G4X adds four 40 GbE connections to the Summit X650 Top-of-Rack stackable switches for $3,995, or less than $1,000 per port.

The new module is fully compatible with the existing Summit X650 and Summit X480 stackable switches, preserving customers’ investments while providing a smooth upgrade to greatly increased scalability of both virtualized and non-virtualized data centers.

At Interop Las Vegas, Extreme Networks is demonstrating the VIM3-40G4X installed in a Summit X650 stackable switch in a “Top-of-Rack” configuration connected to the BlackDiamond 8800 chassis with a four port 40 GbE module configured as the Data Center core. All of the industry-leading features of the ExtremeXOS modular operating system, including Layer 2/Layer 3 forwarding, redundancy and resiliency features such as EAPS, and the ability to bond together multiple links, are implemented at 40 GbE speeds.

Extreme Networks recent announcement of its XNV VM Lifecycle Management and the Direct Attach network virtualization architecture, named a Best of Interop Finalist in the virtualization category, are fully supported with 40 GbE at their release.

40 GbE is poised to become a data center infrastructure requirement, where it serves as an aggregation technology necessary to build data centers with high performance servers that are supporting virtualized services, video, storage and traditional applications.

Pricing and Availability: Extreme Networks VIM3-40G4X for the Summit X650 series switch will be in customer trial in the third quarter of 2010 and customer shipment follows at the U.S. list price of $3,995.

NComputing, provider of low-cost virtual desktops for Windows, Linux, VMware and Citrix, with over 20 million daily users, today announced the launch and immediate availability of the L300 access device based on the NComputing Numo family chip, a highly integrated and multimedia enhancing System-on-Chip (SoC).

The L300, in combination with NComputing vSpace virtualization software delivers Windows virtual desktops and integrates seamlessly into Citrix and VMware VDI installations.

The L300 Ethernet virtual desktop builds on the success of the L series product line by delivering rich, full screen, full motion multimedia playback up to 1920×1080 resolution, transparent USB redirection, and simple but powerful deployment and management tools, making setup easy to deploy 4 workstations in a remote branch office or four thousand in a corporate office.

The L300, in combination with NComputing vSpace virtualization software provides the high-quality virtual desktops that have already seen rapid adoption with more than 600,000 commercial deployments. The L300 zero client costs less than any other thin or zero client option in the marketplace and a quarter of the cost of desktop PCs. In combination with the NComputing vSpace Software, the L300 enables VDI solutions at one third the price of other offerings.

F5 Networks today announced new Application Delivery Controller platforms, extending its BIG-IP product family.

F5 is offering a new high-end appliance series with the BIG-IP 11050 platform and a new 8950 hardware appliance featuring higher throughput and enhanced layer 4 performance. In addition, F5 is delivering production and lab versions of its virtual appliance, BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Virtual Edition (VE). Together, F5’s physical and virtual ADC solutions provide enterprises and service providers with greater flexibility, offering a hybrid approach to architecting an adaptable and highly scalable application delivery network.

The addition of these new hardware platforms and BIG-IP LTM VE improves F5’s ability to provide the foundations of a flexible ADN architecture and support the company’s vision for enterprise cloud architecture. With these agile infrastructure components, organizations can implement a framework to deliver services dynamically as application and network conditions change.

The F5 TMOS architecture means that all BIG-IP appliances—physical and virtual—can leverage the flexible capabilities of the iRules programming language and iControl API, as well as the resources from the company’s DevCentral community. With these powerful, unified technologies, customers can achieve comprehensive visibility and control over their application delivery environments.

BIG-IP 8950 & 11050 Hardware Helps Customers Meet Growing Throughput Demands

• The new platforms support high throughput levels to meet the application delivery needs of service providers and organizations that put a premium on transactions per second, such as financial institutions. The BIG-IP 8950 platform features a throughput level of 20 Gbps, while the 11050 boasts 42 Gbps.
• The solutions support 10 Gb Ethernet connectivity to help bandwidth-conscious customers deliver enhanced application services. The platforms provide ideal solutions for customers that have configured their data centers around 10GE or are currently planning to upgrade their infrastructure.
• With the 8950 and 11050 platforms, customers have the ability to incorporate additional application services (acceleration, high availability, application security, etc.), as their business needs evolve. Because these capabilities can be added to the existing ADN hardware platform, F5 solutions offer both enhanced functionality and optimum performance.

BIG-IP LTM VE Improves ADC Scalability and Simplifies Solution Deployment

• Virtual ADCs can be rapidly deployed and scaled to support applications as resources are needed. In addition, cloud providers can leverage virtual ADCs to apply specific application policies on a per-customer basis to support individual organizations’ business priorities.
• BIG-IP LTM VE provides improved evaluation, development, integration, QA, and staging for application delivery policies and deployments. By enabling customers to deploy a virtual BIG-IP device in a testing lab, customers can conveniently test how applications and networks will respond in a production environment. This capability also enables customers to evaluate the addition of other ADC services such as SSL offloading, caching, and compression, and seamlessly transfer from testing scenarios into production.
• BIG-IP LTM VE will be available in a full production version and a non-production lab version, as well as the previously announced trial. The full production version features variable throughput options up to 1Gbps. The lab version enables in-depth testing, and is best suited for efforts around application development, test, QA, and other non-production scenarios.
• Unlike other virtualized application delivery offerings, BIG-IP LTM VE is part of a comprehensive application delivery architecture platform. This means that it has been designed to operate in tight integration with F5’s broad product portfolio, as well as support solutions from other leading virtualization companies such as VMware.

The BIG-IP 8950 and 11050 hardware platforms will be available in April. Production and Lab versions of the BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Virtual Edition will also be available in April.