Virtualization.com

News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing

Veeam

Veeam Announces Enhancements To nworks Product Line

by Leave a Comment

Veeam Software today made available version 4.5 of its nworks Management Pack (MP) for VMware for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager and its nworks Smart Plug-in (SPI) for VMware for HP Operations Manager. Both products now use VMware vCenter custom attributes to offer the ability to segment VMware environments by line of business, SLA (service-level agreement) terms, or any categorization of the customer’s choosing. This allows customers to manage virtual machines in accordance with their criticality to business needs, and to group virtual machines for management by department or location.

Version 4.5 of both products also includes significant enhancements in scalability and performance. Veeam developers, working closely with VMware’s scalability lab, enhanced the nworks Collector version 4.5 to support larger VMware environments and reduce vCenter processing requirements. A single Collector now supports more than twice as many ESX hosts and virtual machines as before, with far less performance impact on the vCenter server. With this breakthrough in scalability and performance, enterprise customers gain operational efficiency while monitoring their ever-growing virtual environments.

The nworks MP and SPI from Veeam have both been qualified through the VMware Ready testing process and are certified as VMware Ready Optimized products. This key designation from VMware validates the Veeam products as being architected and tuned for VMware Infrastructure, as well as for the next-generation VMware vCloud. The nworks MP and SPI are VMware endorsed solutions for VMware management per the VMware Ready Management program, providing customers assurance that these Veeam products not only offer lower integration costs today but also will support VMware Infrastructure future directions.

The Veeam nworks MP and SPI 4.5 are both available immediately, with North American pricing remaining at $450 USD per socket for the MP and $690 USD per socket for the SPI.

Veeam Debuts New Versions Of Reporter And Reporter Enterprise Products

by Leave a Comment

Veeam Software, award-winning provider of systems management tools for VMware virtual datacenter environments, today delivers new executive management reporting, integration with corporate CMDBs (change management databases), new change management capabilities, and numerous technical enhancements in version 3.5 of its Veeam Reporter and Veeam Reporter Enterprise products. Veeam Reporter is a favorite of virtualization consultants and systems integrators for documenting customer engagements. Veeam Reporter Enterprise is ideal for documenting large ESX and ESXi environments over time for capacity planning and chargeback.

New features in Reporter Enterprise 3.5 include:
  • Executive Management Reporting — documentation of the virtual environment looks better than ever, with new Visio diagram formats, new pre-defined reports, and a new ability to create and save custom report templates, including corporate logo and formatting.
  • CMDB Integration — provides integration of the VMware environment into common configuration management processes by exporting data into an existing centralized CMDB. Reporter Enterprise 3.5 provides a new PowerShell Extension to run scripts to automatically export Virtual Infrastructure data (both for the current state and earlier points in time) into a company’s centralized CMDB. This eliminates the manual work of     creating inventory spreadsheets, and keeps the central CMDB up-to-date automatically. In addition, running PowerShell scripts against the Reporter Enterprise server instead of vCenter allows users to offload script     processing activities from vCenter, providing for better availability of this critical Virtual Infrastructure element.
  • Change Management — because Veeam Reporter Enterprise gathers virtual infrastructure data periodically on a scheduled basis and stores it in a central Microsoft SQL database, administrators can see point-in-time views  or generate reports to analyze changes over time for configuration drift, security auditing and troubleshooting. In addition or instead of that, administrators can simply opt to receive an e-mail with all changes to the virtual infrastructure since the last data collection.

Veeam Reporter Enterprise 3.5 is available immediately, with North American pricing at $375 USD per socket.

Veeam Expands Partner Program

by Leave a Comment

Veeam Software, provider of systems management tools for VMware ESX host environments, today announced the next phase in its ProPartner program, with added benefits and opportunities for VMware VAR partners in 2009. Basic, Silver and Gold partner levels have been defined, with increasing benefits and opportunities at each level.

At the same time, Veeam has completed the integration of partner programs from nworks, which Veeam acquired in 2008. Veeam and former nworks partners are organized into a global two-tier distribution network to better serve end user customers seeking to back up and recover, report and document, monitor performance, plan capacity and control VM sprawl, manage configuration and change, and otherwise manage VMware infrastructure.

In addition, Veeam announced that its partner network now has more than 1,400 ProPartners worldwide. Partner benefits include up to 65% additional revenue and margins for every VMware ESX deal.

Veeam’s ProPartner levels include:
  • Gold ProPartner – by invitation/approval. Requires at least one VMware certified professional (or equivalent HP or Microsoft designation) on staff. Benefits include NFR keys, internal-use licenses, marketing programs, deal registration, access to the ProPartner portal, and use of the Gold ProPartner logo to designate this elevated partner status.
  • Silver ProPartner – requires approval by regional channel management team. Benefits include NFR keys, internal-use licenses, marketing programs, access to the ProPartner portal, and use of the Silver ProPartner logo.
  • Basic ProPartner – provides any other VAR or reseller who wants to quote or sell Veeam products with access to the ProPartner portal and a starting point to begin working with Veeam.

Veeam Offers Free Version Of Monitor 3.0

by Leave a Comment

Veeam Software, a provider of systems management tools for VMware ESX Server environments, today announced general availability of a new free tool: Veeam Monitor Free Edition. This lightweight version of Veeam Monitor is designed to provide comprehensive real-time monitoring in ESX and ESXi environments, including VMware’s free version of ESXi.

Veeam Monitor Free Edition is built from the ground up specifically for the virtual world, and uses an agentless approach (VMware API) to monitor system health and performance on both VMware ESX and ESXi. Customers can view real-time resource usage data for any virtual infrastructure object or collection of objects, as well as known infrastructure events, all on a single screen.  This unified view of the virtual infrastructure improves administrator productivity vs. fragmented views of isolated hosts and guests.

Key features of Veeam Monitor Free Edition include:

  • Consolidated view with drill-down in VMs – find out at a glance which components of the VMware infrastructure are the largest resource consumers, drill down to an individual VM to see how much CPU and memory it is consuming, and even connect to the VMware Virtual Machine Console – all right from the Veeam Monitor user interface.
  • Correlation of event and performance data – known virtual infrastructure events, such as VMotion, snapshot creation and deletion, or backup activities, are shown directly on the performance graphs.
  • Advanced alerting and flexible alarms – set up to ten e-mail notifications or SNMP traps for important events such as a given number of running VMs is exceeded, VM heartbeat is lost, or a specific event is generated by VirtualCenter.
  • Scalable architecture – client/server architecture supports multi-admin access to performance data without affecting ESX server or VirtualCenter performance.
  • Ease of deployment – takes just minutes to install, configure and begin using.

Veeam Releases Configurator 2.0 for VMware ESX

by 1 Comment

Veeam Software, provider of systems management tools for VMware ESX Server environments, today announced general availability of its Veeam Configurator version 2.0.

The new version is significantly different from 1.0, offering new ways to boost VMware administrator efficiency in the areas of ESX server provisioning and configuration management. Veeam Configurator 2.0 automatically discovers ESX and ESXi configurations across the enterprise and creates Veeam host profile templates. These templates can then be applied to groups of VMware hosts, and periodic scans can uncover inconsistencies and allow administrators to enforce defined templates to ensure policy compliance. The templates can also be used to quickly provision a new or re-build an existing ESX host.

Veeam Configurator helps to ensure that ESX and ESXi host configuration complies with corporate policies and standards across the entire VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3). With Veeam Configurator, administrators can quickly and easily discover the current settings for all VMware hosts, review and adjust the captured configuration sets as needed, and use that information to define their baseline configuration templates. Veeam Configurator host configuration templates are applicable to groups of VMware hosts simultaneously from a central console. At any time, administrators can run the Configurator scan and receive detailed reports of exactly which hosts match the templates, which do not, and where the differences lie.

Veeam Configurator 2.0 is available immediately, with North American pricing starting at $250 USD per socket. Special introductory pricing of $150 per socket is available through the end of 2008.

Release: Veeam Reporter Enterprise 3.0 Edition

by Leave a Comment

Veeam Software today announced general availability of its Veeam Reporter Enterprise Edition. The new offering is an advanced version of Veeam Reporter, the product for automated discovery and documentation of VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3). Veeam Reporter Enterprise is the first solution specifically designed for reporting and change control in large VI3 virtual environments.

Veeam Reporter Enterprise provides unattended data collection and scheduled or ad hoc reporting, as well as centralized Microsoft SQL Server data storage to help systems administrators discover, document and report on all the objects within their VMware virtual infrastructure. Its client/server architecture supports use by many administrators, who can each see their area of interest.

Like the original Veeam Reporter, Reporter Enterprise collects information about the VI3 environment, its components and configuration settings. From this collection, Reporter provides comprehensive Microsoft Visio, Excel, Word or Adobe PDF reports for analysis, change control, documentation and decision-making support.

Veeam Reporter Enterprise is available immediately, with North American pricing beginning at $375 USD per socket.