Robin Wauters

PHD Virtual Technologies, provider of esXpress VM Backup, today announced the latest release of esXpress, a multi-VM backup and restore solution.

With the unique architecture of esXpress, customers have access to the only backup and restore solution available that was custom built for large virtualized deployments.

This architecture provides customers with scalability to meet their needs along with heightened reliability when compared to other solutions in the marketplace. This new version, developed by the only company dedicated to virtual machine backup technology, runs backups up to 20 times faster through an enhanced, single-click backup interface and simplifies restore processes through a centralized web-based restore engine that offers concurrent use by multiple users.

esXpress creates small virtual machines – virtual backup appliances (VBAs) – which uniquely use the virtual environment itself to perform the backups, eliminating the need for added hardware or software resources. This latest release adds Change Block Tracking (CBT) to this powerful VBA foundation for dramatic backup and recovery performance. By reading only the blocks that have changed, and not scanning the entire virtual disk each time a backup is performed, esXpress shortens the backup window and uses considerably less data I/O while also reducing overall loads on network and SAN resources.

esXpress  delivers:

• Linear scalability – With its ability to offer 16 concurrent backups, esXpress offers unmatched performance and scalability to meet critical backup windows
• Verifiable and Measurable Deduplication – esXpress delivers source-side deduplication to reduce network traffic, offer one-pass restores, and deduplicate data across an entire storage target.
• Reliable Change Block Tracking (CBT) –esXpress is the only virtual backup solution that validates the CBT data for each backup, ensuring data integrity and reliability.
• Distributed Architecture / Fault Tolerance – esXpress features a distributed architecture which does not rely on Virtual Center or any other single application to run backups, making it the only truly fault tolerant backup solution available.

The new esXpress 4.0 is available now with pricing starting at $1,000 per host for four concurrent backup streams delivering the best price/performance for data recovery and protection in virtual environments. The product supports unlimited sockets and unlimited cores per host and no additional hardware is required.

Virtual Computer today announced Version 2.0 of NxTop.

Based on 12 months of development and feedback from hundreds of deployments, NxTop 2.0 provides a mature platform for organizations evaluating or implementing their next generation desktop initiative.

NxTop 2.0 comes with a host of new management and security features designed to increase desktop IT productivity:

• Deployment of NxTop Center as a virtual appliance: Enables NxTop Center to operate in high-availability mode using Hyper-V’s automated failover and load-balancing features. In addition, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) can now share a single hardware platform to manage multiple customers, making NxTop an ideal management platform to lower the cost of managing small and medium sized businesses
• Staged virtual machine updates: Allows patching of a single shared image and patch delivery to one or more users or groups for testing. Upon testing completion, the patch can be delivered, with the click of a button, to all users.
• Multi-language support: Most large-enterprise customers have global operations. To aid in international rollouts, NxTop 2.0 now provides the ability to create virtual machines in a dozen popular languages including Spanish, French, German and Japanese.
• Automated profile migration: Upgrading to Windows 7 can present a major challenge to large organizations. For example, the target PC must be taken out of service and user files and personalization settings must be migrated, and end-users must be trained on new features before they can be productive. NxTop 2.0 simplifies this process with a new tool that can automatically migrate users from their current XP environment to a new virtualized environment based on XP, Windows 7 or both. When combined with NxTop’s existing automated deployment features for Windows 7, and ability to run both XP and Windows 7 side by side, moving a large group of users from XP to Windows 7 has never been easier.
• Hardware Compatibility Checker: Many of the Intel based laptops shipped in the last two to three years have shipped without Virtualization Technology (VT), a requirement for NxTop Engine. To help IT administrators quickly find compatible machines, NxTop 2.0 provides a tool that can analyze a user’s PC and verify that it will run NxTop Engine.

NxTop Engine now provides an operating system independent control panel with a familiar look-and-feel that blends seamlessly into Windows XP, Windows 7 or Linux.

Enhancements include:

• Direct access to the NxTop control panel from within Windows
• Configurable “hot key” shortcuts to control various hardware on laptop machines (multi-monitor switching, volume control, mouse control, platform locking, and others)
• Better power management and platform sleep functions
• Intuitive design that avoids the need for end-user training

A free evaluation download of the full NxTop 2.0 software suite is available as well as a cloud-based live demonstration system. Pricing is on a per-PC perpetual licensing model.

VKernel today announced the release of Capacity Analyzer 4.3 which allows users to manage both VMware and Hyper-V environments from a single console.

VKernel’s latest release of Capacity Analyzer also allows Systems Center users to receive alerts on performance issues in their VMware environment.

Capacity Analyzer now integrates with Microsoft’s Systems Center Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager as well as VMware’s vCenter and ESX. It automatically collects performance and capacity data, profiles each virtualized application and builds an accurate model of available capacity, across servers and storage at every layer of the user’s virtualized infrastructure. Capacity Analyzer’s extensive analyses then identify capacity bottlenecks that are impacting performance, predict where future problems will arise, give specific instructions on how to resolve these issues and tells users where to place new virtual machines to avoid capacity issues.

Lanamark today announced availability of Lanamark Suite 2010.

The new release extends desktop and data center analytics with Compatibility Pack for Microsoft Windows 7, Application Analysis Pack and User Analysis Pack. The new capabilities provide deep insight into compatibility of software and hardware with Microsoft Windows 7, application usage patterns and resource consumption, and user access and application requirements.

The Compatibility Pack for Microsoft Windows 7 provides detailed information on applications and hardware compatible with Windows 7. Each application is given a compatibility rating for 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 7. Information on whether a free or a paid application upgrade is required is also provided. Similarly, all desktops and laptops are checked for compatibility based on hardware configuration and device driver availability.

The Application Analysis Pack identifies and categorizes software applications using the Lanamark Software Intelligence (LSI) recognition engine and an up-to-date repository with thousands of unique application fingerprints. It enables analysis of how applications are used, whether applications are launched locally or on terminal servers and what compute, storage and network resources are consumed. The Application Analysis Pack also calculates the number of machines, processors and cores available to each application. This information is critical for computing licensing requirements, reducing licensing costs and ensuring software compliance.

The User Analysis Pack helps determine user and licensing requirements based on applications, desktops and laptops used by each user across time. It also provides key user attributes such as organizational unit and department from Active Directory, distinguishes between office-based and mobile users and categorizes users based on application usage patterns into task worker, knowledge worker and power user classes. The User Analysis Pack tracks the number of concurrent and unique application users, enabling licensing optimization for applications licensed in this manner.

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