TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- PlateSpin today announced the general availability of PowerP2V 4.0, the world's leading fully automated physical-to-virtual migration solution. With well over 150 customers in its first six months of availability, the release of PowerP2V 4.0 is a major step forward in providing the world's first fully automated Operating System Portability platform, which allows operating systems and their associated applications and data to be moved between physical and virtual machines with zero manual effort for VMware ESX Server, VMware GSX Server, and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005.
PlateSpin PowerP2V 4.0 now adds flexible and reusable image support for physical-to-virtual machine (P2V) and virtual-to-virtual machine (V2V) migrations for Windows- and Linux-based servers. In addition to providing direct source-to-target conversions, users can now stage the conversion process by remotely capturing an image of a source physical server or virtual machine and storing it in PlateSpin's flexible image format on any file medium. Unlike other image-based solutions on the market, which require images to be deployed on identically configured systems, PowerP2V's flexible image format allows a single image to be repeatedly deployed on different virtual infrastructures that have different hardware and software configurations. PlateSpin's image format is usable for P2V, V2V and will be usable for V2P migrations in a future release. This will allow data centers to redeploy and reuse a single image to any virtual or physical server environment.
PowerP2V 4.0 also provides a new "lights-out" feature that automatically issues email alerts should any conversion job fail. This fully configurable feature provides the user with the option of passively monitoring the progress of jobs in addition to actively monitoring jobs through the use of PowerP2V's real-time job monitor. Through email alerting, users can perform multiple conversion jobs and be notified any time a significant event occurs throughout the conversion process.
Other enhancements of PlateSpin PowerP2V 4.0 include:
-- Support for conversions to VMware ESX Server 2.5. -- Support for ESX port groups. -- Transfer of files with restricted permissions. -- Extended NTFS support, such as compressed and sparse files. -- Additional support for Windows dynamic disks. -- Support for French language OS. -- Support for Red Hat Linux 8.
PlateSpin PowerP2V 4.0 with image support is most useful for solving the following data center challenges:
Server Consolidation for Geographically Separated Data Centers:
Many server consolidation initiatives involve source and target servers that reside in different geographic locations, and have little or no network bandwidth between them. With PowerP2V 4.0, data center users have the option of staging the conversion by first capturing the source server into a PlateSpin image format, and then deploying it to a virtual host server in the central data center. PlateSpin's new image format support also allows users to maximize uptime by staggering the capture and deploy processes, which allows users to accommodate different availability and uptime requirements for source and target machines. The ability to provide staged conversions based on PlateSpin's image format also allows users to repeatedly perform conversions from an image library as an alternative to performing a direct source server data transfer -- providing a new form of flexible provisioning. Like PlateSpin's direct peer-to-peer data transfer method, the image capture and deploy process does not require any physical contact with the source or target machines. Users simply connect to the network where the source system resides, capture the image onto their machine (even a laptop), connect to the network where the target system resides, and deploy the image to the target host.
Disaster Recovery using Virtual Machines:
Many data centers are using virtual machines as "warm-backups" as an alternative to, or in concert with, tape backup for disaster recovery using PowerP2V's existing automated peer-to-peer conversion. With PowerP2V 4.0, users now have the option of performing backups of virtual machines to a PlateSpin image format, in addition to replicating a server to another virtual machine directly. Should the primary virtual machine fail, users can easily restore the virtual machine to a previous working state from either a PlateSpin flexible image file or the recovery virtual machine instance.
Load Matching between Virtual Host Servers:
PowerP2V 4.0 allows users to move virtual machines between heterogeneous virtual host servers such as VMware ESX Server, VMware GSX Server, and Microsoft Virtual Server in order to balance loads. Especially useful for non-SAN based virtual host environments, PowerP2V can migrate a virtual machine from an over-utilized host server to an under-utilized host server by simply dragging and dropping a VM from a source host to a secondary virtual host. This effectively allows the user to quickly and easily match VMs with the most suitable virtual hosts to maximize application performance and balance workload.
Rapid Replication of Production Servers for Application Testing:
Using PowerP2V 4.0 with flexible image support, users can capture an entire production server and replicate it to a virtual machine environment in the test lab even if there is insufficient network bandwidth or network connectivity between the production environment and test labs. Users can simply capture a production server to PlateSpin's image file format, and automatically and repeatedly deploy it in the virtual host in the separate test lab environment.
"With PowerP2V 4.0, we can literally pick up an entire production server's operating system and associated applications and data and save it to a laptop computer with PowerP2V 4.0 installed," said Simon Gay, Consultancy Practice Leader of Computacenter, Europe's leading independent provider of IT infrastructure services. "PowerP2V's easy drag-and-drop user interface allows us to take a 'snapshot' of the production server image and redeploy it in our own virtual lab environment quickly and easily, saving us considerable amount of time and effort when trying to isolate application problems."
"PlateSpin PowerP2V 4.0 enables us to address server consolidation between geographically spanned data centers where there is low network bandwidth and connectivity," said one of Europe's leading law firms. "PlateSpin has greatly enhanced our ability to migrate from physical servers to virtual infrastructure by offering image support on top of the direct peer-to-peer conversion support."
"PowerP2V 4.0 advances PlateSpin's Operating System Portability platform vision, which is to be able to extract and move a server's operating system, applications, and data from one data center infrastructure to another seamlessly and automatically," said Stephen Pollack, CEO of PlateSpin Ltd. "As we make progress in expanding our conversion capabilities to other platforms, operating systems, and formats, PlateSpin will be able to fulfill its vision to provide a technology solution which can move or replicate any server to any kind of physical or virtual infrastructure, enabling new forms of data center optimization to occur."
About PlateSpin PowerP2V
PlateSpin PowerP2V is an automated server conversion solution that allows data centers to migrate Windows and Linux servers between physical and virtual infrastructure, as well as between disparate virtual infrastructures in a completely hands-free and automated way. VMware ESX Server, GSX Server, and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 are virtual platforms where multiple operating systems can reside and share resources on a single hardware host, thereby increasing efficiency of the data center by increasing server utilization rates. PowerP2V, initially released in June of 2004, has gained rapid market acceptance and has over 150 satisfied customers.
Pricing and Availability
PlateSpin PowerP2V 4.0 is available to the public today and can be purchased for US$3,000 for a 25 conversion license. Unlimited annual and perpetual licenses are also available upon request. Please contact sales@platespin.com for more details. Existing customers of PlateSpin using earlier versions of PowerP2V can upgrade to PowerP2V 4.0 as part of their support and maintenance agreements.
About PlateSpin Ltd.
PlateSpin is a leading supplier of technology and solutions that bring flexibility and automation to the multi-architecture data center. PlateSpin's unique Operating System Portability platform is ideal for enterprises looking to evolve, manage, and optimize both physical and virtual infrastructure server environments to improve service levels and lower operational costs.