Xtravirt

Xtravirt Unveils Global Virtualization Capacity Assessment Service

June 8, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Xtravirt Limited, which runs a leading global virtualization knowledge portal, today announced the general availability of an online Capacity Assessment Service. The service allows customers to run on-demand capacity assessments of their environments, ensuring correct sizing of virtualization solutions for virtual desktop, server consolidation and data center transformation projects.

“Capacity planning is an essential component for any organisation wishing to adopt virtualisation; whether it be desktop replacement or a server consolidation exercise,” states Paul Davey, CTO of Xtravirt. “We have kept the whole process as simple as possible,” continues Paul. “Collected data, consisting of performance metrics, are securely uploaded to the Xtravirt VReady Portal, where they are analyzed to produce a summary VReady Assessment Report. This can be subsequently extended and we can quickly produce a comprehensive analysis, including full what-if scenarios, solution optimization and licensing calculations. If a client wishes to use a particular brand of server, or server SKU, they can let us know and we can feed it into the design.”

The Xtravirt VReady Portal freely allows customers to download a small data collector module (approximately 10 MB) and start collecting data immediately without agents, additional infrastructure or external consultants.

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

March 25, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

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.

PHD Technologes “Acq-hires” Xtravirt Co-founder Alex Mittell

September 16, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

PHD Technologies (previous coverage), provider of the esXPRESS data protection solution for virtualized infrastructures, today announced the acquisition of UK-based Xtravirt’s suite of virtualization products. As part of the transaction, Xtravirt co-founder, Alex Mittell, will join PHD Technologies as Director of Research & Development. Xtravirt will continue to partner with PHD Technologies as a distributor of esXPRESS to existing and new Xtravirt customers in the UK.

The virtualization tools acquired by PHD Technologies’ will benefit managers of virtualization infrastructures. These include VI3 SnapHunter, a virtual machine snapshot reporter; VI3 PatchDownloader, an automated downloader of VMware ESX patches; VISBU, an infrastructure backup utility and KS Quick Config, a tool to speed up the deployment and configuration of VMware ESX 3 servers.

Alex Mittell is widely known as a technical expert and thought leader in the virtualization community. Prior to co-founding Xtravirt, he worked at Oxford University in the UK as a virtual architect, setting up the university’s virtual infrastructure. Mittell will continue to be based in London.