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high availability

PHD Technologies Becomes PHD Virtual, Gives Away Virtualization Tools Free Of Charge

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PHD Virtual Technologies, provider of the esXpress high availability data protection solution for virtual IT, was unveiled today as the new corporate brand for PHD Technologies. Along with the new corporate identity, PHD Virtual is also introducing its new website, featuring free virtualization utility downloads (originally developed by xtravirt).

They include:

  • VMNetBac 1.2.0 – VMNetBac allows customers to backup and restore the network configuration of a virtual machine. VMNetBac is a quick recovery tool to minimize the risk of losing network configurations when intrusive or mass-upgrade type tasks are performed.
  • Virtual SAN 1.0.0 – This Virtual SAN appliance for VMware ESX 3 Server provides the benefits of shared VMFS storage without the cost of a SAN. It utilizes, otherwise unused, local storage in the ESX server to facilitate enterprise-level features such as vMotion, DRS and HA.
  • SnapHunter 0.5.3 – SnapHunter is an ESX 3 Service Console utility which reports back on the Snapshot status of virtual machines from multiple ESX Servers.
  • KS QuickConfig 1.3.0 – KS QuickConfig is a Windows GUI utility that reduces the time needed to deploy and configure VMware ESX 3 servers, and to eliminate inconsistencies that can arise with manual operations.

The new PHD Virtual site also provides a full-featured trial download of the company’s award winning, scalable esXpress data protection solution for virtual IT. esXpress enables companies to perform autonomous, fault-tolerant backup and restoration of an entire virtual environment in less time at lower cost with a virtual backup appliance (VBA). These small virtual machines can be deployed in minutes on an ESX server to autonomously conduct hot full or “virtual full” backups of virtual machines. esXpress can be deployed with minimal impact on virtual server, console or network performance and requires no additional hardware or software investment.

Symantec Unveils Veritas Cluster Server One (VCS One)

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Symantec today introduced Veritas Cluster Server One (VCS One), a new high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) platform for next-generation data centers. VCS One moves beyond traditional clustering, enabling IT managers to implement advanced services including active/active DR, multi-tier business application HA and scale-out control — increasing uptime and decreasing capital (CAPEX) and operational costs (OPEX) for the business.

Traditional clustering solutions can be complex to deploy and manage for individual databases and applications. Yet next-generation data centers, with their need for virtualized, scalable and distributed environments, strain these traditional solutions past the breaking point. Next-generation data centers are leveraging server virtualization to create thousands of servers, demanding a massive increase in scalability. In addition, traditional clustering solutions complicate or even prevent the use of valuable virtualization features like live migration. Finally, maintaining only the availability of traditional back-end services such as databases is not enough. Instead, organizations require the availability of end-to-end business applications built on highly distributed, multi-tier application architectures.

Veritas Cluster Server One delivers a new, unique HA/DR architecture that not only directly addresses these issues, but also dramatically simplifies the deployment and ongoing management of HA/DR services. The VCS One architecture is client-server based and highly scalable, initially supporting up to 256 nodes per cluster. It is non-intrusive and outside the operating system kernel — facilitating deployment and upgrades. VCS One also has a simpler networking model and built-in resiliency against configuration changes that impact availability. VCS One is policy-driven, with priorities, scheduling and dependency management to automate tasks and increase operator efficiency. Finally, Veritas Cluster Server One has server virtualization abstraction and control to deliver a common HA/DR operating model across the various virtual platforms in an enterprise data center.

Veritas Cluster Server One provides high availability and disaster recovery for the next-generation data center with: One platform for virtual and physical environments; One platform for multi-tier and monolithic applications; and One platform for scale-out and scale-up control.

Veritas Cluster Server One is now generally available with estimated pricing starting at $995 per CPU.

VirtualLogix Invents “Carrier Grade Virtualization”

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VirtualLogix today announced something called “Carrier Grade Virtualization”, which it claims is the industry’s first solution that meets the performance, security, serviceability and availability needs of next generation, multicore-based carrier grade systems.

VirtualLogix says Carrier Grade Virtualization reduces the cost and complexity of maintaining carrier grade properties in edge and core network elements such as IP Multimedia System (IMS) nodes. According to the news release, networking and telecommunication OEMs can reuse existing investments in their carrier grade systems while gaining the benefits of using VirtualLogix VLX real-time virtualization software (faster adoption of multicore architectures and consolidation of hardware, reduced bill of materials, increased availability, improved time to market, and more efficient designs as a result).

VirtualLogix Carrier Grade Virtualization technology integrates High-Availability software with real-time virtualization in a multicore environment, and allows HA middleware to manage not only applications and hardware but also virtual machines running their own operating systems.

VirtualLogix also announced they are joining the Service Availability Forum.

VirtualLogix Carrier Grade Virtualization technology is immediately available and integrates VLX for Network Infrastructure, vHA, a virtualization enabled HA interface, and VLX Developer, a set of configuration, building and monitoring tools.

[Source: Business Wire]

VirtualLogix

Exclusive Video: VMware In A Nutshell, By Product Marketing Manager John Gilmartin

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So what’s VMware all about now on a technology level, now that their stock went tumbling and their CEO has been replaced? John Gilmartin, Group Manager, Product Marketing at VMware answered our questions on virtualization in general and their strategy and product portfolio in particular.

After defining virtualization and virtual machines, John dives deeper into what drives prospective virtualization customers (infrastructure consolidation, high availability, business continuity, disaster recovery?). He also shares more on their recently announced VMsafe initiative, which allows trusted partners to ‘peak’ into a Virtual Machine and identify threats from the outside of the operating systems and the applications they try to protect.

John underlines that VMware is offering features far beyond the basic data center consolidation needs; such as life cycle management, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), automated provisioning, fail over, disaster recovery and optimize the management tasks for a virtual infrastructure.

All this is part of VMware’s from-desktop-to-datacenter portfolio and makes VMware feel confident and well positioned to compete with Hyper-V from Microsoft.

Stratus Technologies Releases Avance, Integrates With Citrix XenServer for Software-Based High-Availability Solution

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Stratus Technologies has announced (PDF) its Stratus Avance software, the company’s first software-based high availability (HA) product. Using embedded virtualization and running on ordinary x86 servers, Avance claims to provide levels of availability superior to, and without the complexity of, high-availability cluster solutions for Linux and Windows applications.

Stratus Technologies

Stratus’ new software-based solution targets the SMB market as well as “edge” applications in large distributed networks where IT-staff support is minimal or non-existent. Prospective customers include medical practices, retail chains, small companies, branch banks, remote office or departmental computing, or distributed warehouses, distribution hubs or manufacturing facilities, for example.

Unlike other high-availability solutions, Avance HA positions itself as instant and automatic. Processing takes place on one server and data is simultaneously written to the mate, which can seamlessly assume
processing duties at any time should the primary server go out of service. If that happens, the affected server is removed from the network, alerts go out to user-defined recipients, a repair is made, and the server is brought back online to resynchronize with the active node with no downtime or data loss.

Avance is integrated with Citrix XenServer, and the U.S. list price for Avance software is $2,500 per server (including the license for Citrix XenServer). Avance software is available from Stratus channel partners and distributors, and in volume purchases directly from Stratus.

VirtualLogix Introduces VLX vHA, Aims To Lead In High-Availability Assurance For Virtualized Environments

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VirtualLogix today released VLX vHA, which it claims is the industry’s first solution that enables high-availability (HA) assurances for communications equipment utilizing virtualization. VLX vHA comes integrated with VLX for Network Infrastructure and aims to increase system availability without the cost and scalability restrictions of traditional solutions.

VirtualLogix

“There are growing requirements to increase the up-time of all types of communications equipment in today’s competitive environment. Yet traditionally, high-availability techniques have been mostly applied in high-end core networks due to complexity and hardware cost,” said Mark Milligan, Vice President of Marketing at VirtualLogix. “Now, VLX vHA enables our customers to take full advantage of high availability combined with virtualization. Built on an open architecture supporting standard Service Availability Forum interfaces, VLX vHA also provides a viable option for organizations looking to utilize their existing high-availability software in the new, virtualized, multicore environment.”

VLX vHA offers fault recovery and system management services across virtual and physical domains, allowing companies to increase the availability of communications equipment and other critical embedded systems. vHA also offers scalability with wide range capabilities from hardware and guest OS management to the restart of applications from a known state. This allows the introduction of the appropriate level of availability based on system requirements.

VLX vHA is available as an option with VLX for Network Infrastructure real-time virtualization software.

[Source: LinuxDevices]