Software manages capabilities of multiple servers.
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Press Release Summary:
Virtual Iron(TM) VFe v1.0 lets businesses allocate computing power to any workload according to demand. It separates physical computing hardware from operating systems and applications, allowing transparent virtualization and subsequent management of interconnected physical servers' processor, memory, and I/O capabilities. Software consolidates and manages up to 128 virtual computers and up to 10 virtual servers per adaptive virtual computer.
Original Press Release:
Virtual Iron Software Transforms Industry-Standard Computers into Powerful Virtual Computers
Virtual Iron VFe Delivers Computing Power Where and When it's Needed, Defining New Levels of Flexibility and Costs Savings
PHOENIX, Feb. 14 -- DEMO CONFERENCE -- Virtual Iron(TM) Software, Inc. today unveiled Virtual Iron(TM) VFe -- the first technology that enables businesses to dynamically bring computing power to any workload at any time utilizing industry-standard hardware -- dramatically redefining the enterprise datacenter.
Virtual Iron VFe is a comprehensive software-based virtual computing platform -- the first to combine multiple independent servers to create dynamically scalable, multiplatform virtual servers.
"Enterprise datacenter customers are demanding more utilization from their current server infrastructure," said John C. Thibault, president and CEO of Virtual Iron Software, Inc. "With Virtual Iron VFe, customers can simplify and dynamically adapt to their most demanding business needs -- resulting in a significantly higher utilization of their datacenter resources."
Eliminates the physical boundaries of computers
Virtual Iron VFe is the only solution that completely separates the physical computing hardware from the operating systems and applications -- allowing transparent virtualization of a collection of interconnected physical servers. It does this by transforming physical systems in an enterprise datacenter into a set of computing building blocks -- processors, memory and storage -- and then uses those blocks to create virtual servers. These virtual servers, which can range from a fraction of a processor to large-scale multi-processors that actually span physical systems, can be dynamically reconfigured without interruptions.
New approach to Virtualization
"Virtual processing software has typically either made a single machine look like many independent systems or harness many systems together to present the illusion of a single system," said Dan Kusnetzky, IDC's vice president of System Software Research. "What makes Virtual Iron Software's approach different is that the operating environment itself can manage processor time, memory utilization, I/O, and storage as if these independent systems were a large symmetric multiprocessing system. In effect, the operating system can assign additional resources to itself if and when it needs them. IDC believes that this simple conceptual change would drastically simplify the process of virtualizing an application environment."
Utilizes open standards
With Virtual Iron VFe, off the shelf industry-standard x86 servers can be used as building blocks to create enterprise-wide adaptive virtual computers
-- freeing customers from proprietary hardware. Since these virtual computers also behave like x86 servers supported by Linux, and they run any Linux application transparently; there is no need to re-write existing applications. VFe's architecture completely decouples processing from storage, enabling existing storage infrastructures such as storage area networks (SANs) and network attached storage (NAS) to seamlessly map into the virtual computing platforms. VFe leverages the industry standard Infiniband switching fabric as the interconnect technology for maximum performance.
Breakthrough flexibility, scalability and consolidation
VFe's infrastructure wide virtualization technology enables unprecedented levels of flexibility, scalability and consolidation for the enterprise datacenter.
o Flexibility -- The VFe Management system provides rapid response to changing business and customer needs. Separation of the virtual datacenter from the physical hardware allows customers to rapidly create and dynamically reconfigure adaptive virtual computers to handle demanding workloads. VFe also provides flexibility to manage capacity dynamically and seamlessly without adding hardware infrastructure.
o Scalability -- Supports modular, dynamic scaling of processors, memory and I/O capabilities, all controlled by policy driven management interfaces. IT managers have the ability to adapt to peak workloads, enterprise-wide, without over purchasing excess hardware capacity.
o Consolidation -- Customers can use VFe to consolidate all workloads on virtual computers comprised of independent physical systems.
VFe maximizes enterprise -- wide datacenter resources while delivering powerful return on investment results, including:
o Reduced capital expenditures -- By utilizing fewer physical servers to process any application workloads, customers can buy less capacity on each server as peak workloads can be handled dynamically.
o Reduced operational expenditures -- VFe significantly reduces management complexity by enabling customers to manage fewer servers and operating system instances.
o Flexibility -- VFe quickly provisions servers, operating systems and applications, while providing preventative maintenance without impacting users or applications. It also provides the ability to manage the datacenter as an integrated pool of resources to be flexibly deployed as needed and driven by policy.
"We believe Virtual Iron's technology will bring unique enterprise capabilities to the Linux platform, enabling enterprise customers to achieve greater levels of flexibility, scalability and utility within their data centers," said David Patrick, general manager of Linux, Open Source Platforms and Services at Novell.
VFe Release 1.0 Features
VFe Release 1.0 delivers significant capabilities to solve real business problems within enterprise datacenters. Several unique features of VFe have been specifically designed and architected to enhance Linux for enterprise computing. These include:
o Dynamic scalability of virtual computers backed by datacenter resources
o Hot-pluggable virtual processors, memory and I/O
o Parallel and scalable I/O for maximum efficiency
o Seamless preventative maintenance of physical servers through hot swappable processors
o N+1 high availability clustering through virtual spares
o Policy driven management capabilities with graphical and web services interfaces
o Reduced complexity via rapid provisioning and deployment of virtual computers
o Fault isolation between virtual computers
o Consolidate and manage up to 128 virtual computers
o Create up to an n-way (16 maximum) SMP virtual computer
o Consolidate and manage up to 10 virtual servers per adaptive virtual computer
Availability
Commercial availability of VFe release 1.0 will be in Q2 of 2005. For details, visit www.virtualiron.com/ or call 978-849-1200 or send email to info@virtualiron.com.
About Virtual Iron Software, Inc.
Virtual Iron Software, Inc. provides the only enterprise-class virtual computing platform enabling customers to achieve the highest levels of datacenter utilization, flexibility and significantly lower capital costs. Founded in March 2003 by a highly regarded team of computer industry veterans, Virtual Iron Software is a privately held company based in Acton, Mass. More information is available at www.virtualiron.com/.
CONTACT: Steve Harrington of Virtual Iron Software, Inc., +1-978-849-1200, sharrington@virtualiron.com.
