VMware

Virtualization Spotlight

News, Discussion, etc from the world of Virtualization

5 Posts tagged with the phd_virtual tag
0

Oxford University’s Network Systems Management Services (NSMS) Group Uses esXpress for Low Cost VMware Backup and Recovery

http://virtualization-spotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/esXpressLogo2.png

PHD Virtual Technologies, provider of the pioneering esXpress VMware backup and recovery solution, today announced that Oxford University’s Network Systems Management Services (NSMS) group relies on esXpress to provide data protection and recovery for its VMware environment of 14 ESX servers. esXpress delivers scalable, highly available and cost effective VMware backup and restore capabilities for Oxford University without added hardware or software investments.

Oxford University has been educating people from all walks of life and all parts of the world for more than nine centuries. The first university in the English-speaking world, Oxford University today remains at the forefront of learning, teaching and research. Students from more than 140 countries and territories make up a student population of over 20,000, with over a third coming from outside the United Kingdom. These students are educated by 38 independent and self-governing colleges and six permanent private halls.

The Oxford University NSMS supports the expansive information services for these colleges and halls through an elaborate information technology infrastructure that is offered as a shared managed service to each of the university’s colleges and departments. At the backbone of this infrastructure is Oxford NSMS’ VMware virtualization environment including a dual-site setup with 14 ESX servers, and a single-site ESX cluster based on 10 blades. This virtual environment serves as the central computing center for the entire Oxford University system including support for student records, university email services, web servers, content management systems and university databases.

http://virtualization-spotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/OxfordCrest.jpg

To assure reliable data protection for its virtual infrastructure, Oxford University selected PHD Virtual’s esXpress for its simplicity, scalability and unique Virtual Backup Appliance architecture which enables the virtual environment to back itself up. As such, Oxford University NSMS is able to meet its data protection and recovery requirements for high availability without added hardware or software costs.

“esXpress is a reliable, easy to use backup solution that fits seamlessly into our VMware environment,” said Jon Hutchings, senior system administrator, Oxford University NSMS. “It has saved us a tremendous amount of time and money by using the power of our virtual machines to protect themselves. Now, we no longer need to spend hours locating backup tapes like we did with our previous tape backup solution. Backups are performed seamlessly to disk making restores faster and much more reliable.”

esXpress is a revolutionary VMware backup and data protection solution that uses the virtual environment itself to perform the
backup, in less time, and at a lower cost. Key benefits of esXpress for Oxford University include:

1.) Fault-Tolerance – esXpress is VMware DRS/HA-aware and VMotion compatible making it more reliable and more stable than other solutions

2.) Backs Up More Data in Less Time – With up to 16 concurrent backup streams per ESX host, esXpress enables Oxford to significantly reduce their backup window

3.) Leverages Existing Infrastructure Investments – esXpress’ Data Smart Dynamic Export enables Oxford to leverage its investment in existing physical backup solutions to minimize total cost of ownership

To learn more about esXpress or to download a free trial version, please visit: http://www.phdvirtual.com/products/esxpress-virtual-backup.

0 Comments Permalink
0

During VMworld 2009, PHD Virtual Technologies, provider of the pioneering esXpress data protection and recovery solution for virtual machines, announced the release of esXpress version 4.0.

http://virtualization-spotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/esXpressLogo1.png


This major new release of the most scalable and cost effective VMware backup solution on the market has added changed block tracking to reduce the amount of time and resources required to create backups and a unified central restore GUI to restore data faster and easier than ever before.
“PHD Virtual has developed an efficient solution for the data protection and recovery of virtual machines,” said Laura DuBois, program director, storage software, IDC. “By creating small virtual machines – virtual backup appliances (VBAs) – esXpress uses the virtual environment itself to perform the backups, eliminating the need for added hardware or software resources.”

The new esXpress version 4.0 adds enhanced support for VMware vSphere 4 in addition to ESX 3.x, including the ability to track changes to each VMDK using VMware’s change tracking API. 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.

“By utilizing the changed block data API to do incremental backups, esXpress 4.0 significantly reduces critical backup windows and lowers storage contention,” said Ron McKelvey, CTO, PHD Virtual. “This allows for greater scalability and more frequent backups to meet any virtual environment’s data protection objectives.”

esXpress is the first and only third-party solution that uses multiple virtual backup appliances to leverage the VMware changed block API. In addition to changed block tracking, esXpress 4.0 has also added the ability to initiate VM restores from within the Configuration and Deployment Virtual Appliance GUI. The GUI appliance provides unified management of virtual machine recovery tasks, bypassing the need to connect to each individual ESX host’s Service Console. Using this centralized interface, restoring data is simpler, faster, and more scalable than ever before.

Pricing and Availability
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.

You may also learn about esXpress by visiting PHD Virtual’s virtual VMworld booth: here

To download a free trial version of esXpress, please visit: http://www.phdvirtual.com/products/esxpress-virtual-backup

0 Comments Permalink
0

esXpress Comparison Document

Posted by VMSpotlight Jul 16, 2009

This document was released a few weeks ago and it’s just been pointed out that we havn’t got it up here on our blog!

http://virtualization-spotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/esXpressLogo.png

esXpress 3.5 by PHD Virtual uses multiple virtual backup appliances (VBA’s) to provide highly scalable, high throughput, simultaneous de‐duplicated backups of virtual machines. The use of de‐duplication technology in all backups, which are performed source side at the block level mean that backups are fast and storage efficient. One highly unique feature of the esXpress product is the ability to restore virtual machine backups without requiring the esXpress software installed. The restore mechanism is built into the backup itself making it highly portable as well as providing the simplest and most versatile restore process in the market.

For more information on esXpress 3.5 product visit: http://www.phdvirtual.com/products/esxpress-virtual‐backup

To download a free trial of esXpress 3.5 please visit: http://phdvirtual.com/register

The document available for download from the link below compares esXpress 3.5 against VMware Data Recovery 1.0, Vizioncore vRanger Pro 3.2.8.1, and Veeam Backup & Replication 3.1.

Download the document HERE.

This article is also available here: http://virtualization-spotlight.com/esxpress-comparison-document/

0 Comments Permalink
0

http://virtualization-spotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/logo2.pnghttp://phdvirtual.com/

PHD Virtual Technologies, provider of the pioneering esXpress data protection and recovery solution for virtual machines, today announced availability of Patch Downloader version 6.0, a new freeware solution to simplify patch downloading for various VMware ESX versions.

Patch Downloader version 6.0 is the fifth free virtualization utility to be offered by PHD Virtual as part of its longstanding commitment to the virtualization community.


Patch Downloader v6.0 eases the pain of downloading patches for various ESX versions from the VMware support site by automating the process for users that cannot use the VMware Update Manager. Now, rather than downloading each patch manually through a Java Download manager, VMware administrators can simply select the version of ESX from the Patch downloader drop down menu, and select the file repository (including folder, drive map, SMB share, etc.) to download the patches to. The new freeware solution will list all of the available patches and information about the patches including severity of the problem it corrects, what the impact on VM/Host uptime is, and a description of the problem fixed. Downloads of selected patches are performed with a simple click making it easy to keep the ESX patch repository up to date.


Read the full post here: PHD Virtual Releases New Freeware Solution: Patch Downloader v6.0

0 Comments Permalink
0

esXpress now on LinkedIn!

Posted by VMSpotlight Jun 2, 2009

PHD Virtual’s product esXpress now has a group on LinkedIn called the “Official esXpress Virtual Backup Group“.

The group is sporting some top names in the virtualization community also!

http://virtualization-spotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/linkedin.jpg

esXpress radically alters the notion of how to protect data in virtual infrastructures in one simple way: It uses the virtual infrastructure to back itself up!


This innovative approach enables esXpress to provide best of breed data protection functions without the use of VCB, Proxy Servers or VM Agents.

0 Comments Permalink
Click to view VMSpotlight's profile Member since: Apr 20, 2009

News, Discussion, etc from the world of Virtualization

View VMSpotlight's profile

Communities