Virtual Iron Releases Version 3.6 with New VLAN Support

May 14, 2007; 06:47 AM
Virtual Iron Software (www.virtualiron.com), a provider of server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management software, today announced the general availability of Version 3.6 of its enterprise-class platform. The new release features VLAN support to allow greater server consolidation using fewer Network Interface Cards (NICs). As a result, users gain significant new reductions in hardware costs, management complexity and maintenance and support costs in their data centers.

In separate announcements, Virtual Iron also announced recent customer wins at Meganet Communications and XCalibre Communications, Ltd. Both companies are taking advantage of the new capabilities in the latest release.

“Server virtualization will deliver huge advantages to Meganet in hardware savings, operational expense, and by streamlining the management of our data center infrastructure,” said Paul Joncas, president and co-founder of Meganet Communications, Inc. “The efficiencies and advantages we gain translate directly into increased service levels and better performance for our customers. Virtual Iron Version 3.6 delivers these capabilities and more at a fraction of the cost of comparable alternatives.”

“Virtual Iron is the first server virtualization platform that could satisfy our requirements and it is now turning our vision for a flexible and dynamic IT infrastructure into reality,” said Tony Lucas, XCalibre Communications CEO. “We’re able to deploy Virtual Iron across our entire ISP infrastructure to increase service levels for both our internal and external customers.”

New Cost Savings

As organizations consolidate servers, their virtual infrastructure must also support the networks the servers run on. Traditionally, this required a dedicated NIC for each network at a cost of approximately $300 per network card and switch. With support for VLANs, Virtual Iron Version 3.6 allows multiple networks to share a single network card securely. So, a hosted service provider, which must securely host hundreds of different customers, can now run as many as 50-80 VLANs or more per physical server and only require one NIC port. This translates to as much as $15,000 – 24,000 in savings per server as well as increased server consolidation, and reduced power and cooling requirements. These same benefits apply to traditional data center consolidation projects as well.

"Virtual Iron is the backbone of our goHostPro hosted network offering and VLAN support is a very key element," said Andrew Birch, vice president of business development at TechStructures, LLC, a Charlotte-based managed service provider. "Our customers trust us to provide reliable and secure back-office IT infrastructure. With VLAN support, TechStructures can securely maintain multiple client networks on the same server and pass on significant cost-savings to our customers. It's become an important part of our value proposition."

Reduced Complexity

With the reductions in hardware, VLAN also significantly streamlines the management and maintenance of server infrastructure. Users no longer need to order, install and configure dozens of NIC cards and Ethernet ports on each server. Maintenance and support requirements are also reduced due to less hardware, and IT needs to do less trouble-shooting. All this adds up to improved service levels and significant savings in operational expense.

VLAN adds to Virtual Iron’s comprehensive virtualization and management offering. The software provides production-ready server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management capabilities for unmodified Windows and Linux at one-fifth the cost of comparable alternatives. The platform combines an open source hypervisor with advanced virtualization services and sophisticated policy-based management. Virtual Iron enables users to takes full advantage of new hardware–assisted virtualization (Intel VT and AMD-V) on servers to deliver near native performance. The software also offers other enterprise-class capabilities such as large memory support (up to 96 GB), large SMP capabilities (up to 8 CPUs) and the ability to virtualize server platforms with up to 32 physical CPUs. Unlike other virtualization solutions, Virtual Iron requires no installation or management of software on physical servers, further simplifying installation and data center operations.

“With Version 3.6, Virtual Iron continues to reduce the cost and complexity of enterprise-class virtualization and management,” said Mike Grandinetti, chief marketing officer at Virtual Iron Software. “VLAN support enables users to consolidate more servers within their existing infrastructure, streamline management and maintenance, and reduce data center real estate and power and cooling costs. These new capabilities continue to add to Virtual Iron’s significant price/performance advantage.”

About Virtual Iron Software, Inc.