Symantec Corp., a provider of high availability and security solutions, announced two solutions designed to assist companies struggling with virtualizion of business critical applications and storage on the VMware platform. The two new products, ApplicationHA and VirtualStore, are the result of collaboration between Symantec and VMware.
"ApplicationHA and VirtualStore are both targeted at virtual machine environments," Dan Lamorena, senior manager in Symantec's Storage and Availability Management Group, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "The underlying technology - VCS and CFS respectively - support physical environments and can provide comparable benefits."
Symantec ApplicationHA, based on Veritas Cluster Server technology, will provide high availability for business critical applications through application level visibility and control in VMware environments.
Symantec ApplicationHA will help ensure application high availability by providing visibility, control and integration with VMware vCenter Server and VMware High Availability.
ApplicationHA is not intended to take on the functions of systems management frameworks. "We are not building a general purpose management solution that classical monitoring solutions provide. Our focus is on availability and storage optimization," Lamorena says. "In delivering those, we ensure management of the environments with our footprint is very simple. That said, some organizations may find that our tools delay the need for a heavy duty management solution."
Symantec ApplicationHA monitors applications' health status and detects failures in the virtual machine, restarts failed applications, and coordinates with VMware HA to restart the virtual machine, if needed. Administrators can fully manage all operations of Symantec ApplicationHA through VMware vCenter Server, avoiding the need for additional tools and associated training. Deep discovery and auto-configuration allows administrators to easily install, configure and administer Symantec ApplicationHA with a few clicks.
Built on the industry-leading Veritas Cluster Server technology, ApplicationHA supports a wide range of applications including MS SQL Server, Exchange, IIS, Oracle and SAP. It provides consistent functionality and usability across both Windows and Linux operating systems and is fully compatible with VMware vMotion and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS).
Symantec VirtualStore, based on Veritas Storage Foundation technology, is a software-based storage management solution for VMware virtual machines that will provide rapid provisioning of servers and virtual desktops, efficient cloning and accelerated boot up of virtual machines.
As organizations scale their virtual environments, they find themselves challenged by the ever increasing storage requirements and performance bottlenecks that are associated with retaining hundreds or even thousands of virtual machine images on traditional hardware filers. VirtualStore will enable administrators to fully benefit from their virtualization investments with a software-based NAS solution that scales servers and storage independently, efficiently provisions virtual machines, and delivers advanced storage optimization capabilities for VMware environments.
As is the case with ApplicationHA, VirtualStore integrates with VMware vCenter Server. Based on Symantec's Veritas Storage Foundation technology, VirtualStore is intended to help reduce storage costs associated with virtual machine sprawl and improve the performance of virtual infrastructures. The solution also enables administrators to reduce the cost per virtual machine by repurposing existing storage investments or using inexpensive or commodity storage, Symantec says.
VirtualStore also takes advantage of the benefits of thin provisioning, Lamorena says. "Thin provisioning is the hottest technology, and most customers we have conversations with are either deploying it or considering it," he explains. "The biggest advantage of thin provisioned hardware is that storage is allocated to applications in a just-in-time manner rather than during the deployment phase. This means companies don't over-allocate storage up front, which is what leads to poor storage utilization."
Symantec ApplicationHA is scheduled to be available in September, Symantec says. Symantec VirtualStore is planned to be available in the fourth quarter of 2010 with a per-server pricing model.
Symantec ApplicationHA and VirtualStore will support major platforms including Windows, VMware and Linux. Both Both solution sets are integrated with VMware management tools such as VMware vCenter Server. "Symantec covers both physical and virtual environments with the same set of core capabilities at the back end, tight integration with the relevant ecosystem - in this case tight integration with VMware HA and vCenter in VMware ecosystem - and a management interface on top which lets our customers manage resources across physical and virtual from a single pane of glass," Lamorena says.
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