Vizioncore Ships vConverter 4.0

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Written by Rynardt Spies

Thursday, 06 November 2008 10:54

"Advanced Conversion Tool Helps Customers Move to Virtual Infrastructure; Provides Cost Effective Disaster Recovery for Physical Machines"

Buffalo Grove, IL, November 5th, 2008 – Vizioncore Inc., a market leader in server virtualization management, today announced the availability of vConverter 4.0, the most rapid and versatile physical-to-virtual (P2V) and virtual-to-virtual (V2V) conversion tool on the market. vConverter 4.0 automates and accelerates conversions to Microsoft, Virtual Iron, VMware and XenServer environments, allowing customers to migrate workloads between platforms as part of scheduled conversion projects or for disaster recovery purposes.

vConverter 4.0 enables rapid and easy conversions without burdensome discovery, or software installation on the source system. An intuitive GUI allows administrators to convert single or multiple servers simultaneously within just a few clicks. Conversion jobs can also be scheduled for non-peak times to ensure as little disruption as possible. By combining cutting-edge disk and networking technology with extensive automation of pre- and post-conversion tasks, vConverter 4.0 can also successfully migrate more servers per conversion window than any other technology.

"The benefits of virtualization are now widely accepted, but end-users are not fully informed how they go about moving to a virtual infrastructure," said Chris Akerberg, President and Chief Operating Officer of Vizioncore. "By giving users a simple and non-disruptive way of bringing their physical servers into the virtual realm, vConverter 4.0 eases the path to virtualization for organizations that may have previously been concerned about the potential risk or disruption caused by such a transition. This latest version of vConverter sets new standards in levels of speed, automation and reliability of conversion, providing a wealth of new features that make it suitable for all sorts of conversion projects – from one-off conversions and P2V jobs for disaster recovery, right through to enterprise-scale migration initiatives."

New Features in vConverter 4.0:

Synchronized Cutover – Allows users to dramatically shorten cutover windows and reduce the downtime required during workload migration projects. After the initial P2V of the source, subsequent changes are synchronized on intervals until the final sync event, which can take as little as a few minutes. Furthermore, the workload can be tested in the new location while the source continues to run before a final synchronization and cutover is performed.
Continuous Protection – Enables customers to use P2V as a disaster recovery tool by retaining a virtual "bootable backup" of a physical machine, thus protecting workloads in a cost-effective manner. New incremental replication technology in vConverter 4.0 allows physical servers to be continuously protected. To minimize network traffic and allow for more regular replication cycles, only changes to blocks within a file with changed data are transferred rather than the entire file itself.
Remote Cold Cloning – Connects to and automatically reboots a source machine into an offline boot environment to conduct conversions at optimal speed. This guarantees data consistency between source and target. Remote Cold Cloning is a good option for converting transactional systems such as database and email servers.
Virtual Appliance – Enables conversions where no service console is present (e.g., Xen and VMware ESX 3i). Virtual Appliance features a pre-installed and pre-configured environment with all the necessary configurations for conversion.
Task and User Profiles – Saves time and resources by storing and re-using pre-defined conversion settings and user credentials. This is particularly useful for large-scale migration projects by eliminating the need to manually define conversion settings for individual servers, and instead enabling the ability to apply set parameters to groups of target servers.
Raw Device Mapping – Allows a file in a separate VMFS volume to act as a proxy for a raw physical device. An RDM provides a virtual machine with direct access to a logical unit, which is beneficial for large data drives typically associated with high I/O transactional systems such as Microsoft SQL and Microsoft Exchange. An RDM is used to keep data on the SAN, so a customer can utilize the underlying SAN software for snapshots and replication.
Quick Convert – Allows users to perform lightning-fast, ad hoc conversions with just one click, which makes for the easiest and fastest way to import lists of servers from a spreadsheet, set-up and perform migrations.

Pricing and Availability

Vizioncore vConverter 4.0 is available in two editions from Vizioncore’s worldwide channel partner network: Server Consolidation for one-time conversions at an SRP of $129 and Disaster Recovery for recurring conversions at an SRP of $299. For more information, visit www.vizioncore.com/vconverter.html.

About Vizioncore Inc.

Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Buffalo Grove, IL, Vizioncore Inc. is a fully-owned subsidiary of Quest Software. The company has operations in North America, EMEA, Asia and Australia. Vizioncore's products provide server virtualization management solutions that help customers safeguard and optimize their IT systems while allowing them to extract the maximum return on their investment in virtualization. Vizioncore’s products are built from the ground up to support virtual environments with none of the legacy encumbrances of products built for the physical servers. Over 12,500 organizations around the world, from SMBs to large-scale enterprises, use Vizioncore’s products. Vizioncore operates independently and distributes its products through an extended partner network of 2,200 value-added resellers worldwide. For more information, please visit http://www.vizioncore.com/.