Arkeia Software today announces Arkeia Network Backup v8.0 which delivers the first true virtual appliance for backup that gives customers free choice of hardware.
Version 8.0 extends Arkeia’s product family of physical backup appliances and software applications to address the rapidly-growing demand for virtual backup appliances. Arkeia Network Backup v8.0 also simplifies backups of virtualized server environments, protecting both traditional and virtual machine platforms with one consistent process and making backups more reliable.
The Arkeia Virtual Appliance delivers Arkeia Network Backup as a system image for a VMware virtual machine and comes bundled with everything required to implement a robust backup solution, including licenses for a disk-based virtual tape library (VTL) and Arkeia Backup Agents. The Arkeia Virtual Appliance delivers all the functionality of Arkeia Network Backup v8.0 and interoperates with Arkeia Backup Agents and the Arkeia Backup Replication. The Arkeia Virtual Appliance can be deployed in both VMware ESX and ESXi virtual environments.
The new Arkeia VMware ESX Agent is installed on an ESX hypervisor and allows backup of one or several virtual machines on that physical computer, regardless of the operating system or the application running in the virtual machines. The Arkeia VMware ESX Agent leverages the VMware ESX snapshot mechanism.
Other features in v8.0 include an enhanced graphical user interface, expanded reporting capabilities, simplified tape library management, wiki-based documentation, and delivery platform updates.
Arkeia Network Backup v8.0 is currently in beta test, and is expected to become generally available in March, 2009. Pricing for the virtual appliance deployment with three bundled backup agents begins at $2,000.