Double-Take® Software, Gartner Research and Chickasaw Nation Launch Video Webinar on
Workload Optimization Best Practices

Southborough, Mass. – May 20, 2009 –– Double-Take® Software (NASDAQ: DBTK) today announced the availability of a video webinar focused on how a Workload Optimization strategy can impact a company’s bottom line. Produced in partnership with Gartner Research, the video webinar, titled, “Maximize Your Strategy for Migration, Virtualization, Availability, and Desktop Management,” is ready for immediate viewing at
http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/blade/0/50447458/ .

Solution eliminates need for shared storage for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V customers

SOUTHBOROUGH, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Double-Take® Software (NASDAQ: DBTK) today announced a solution with Microsoft Corp. that enables disaster recovery for virtual workloads without the cost and complexity of shared storage or storage area network (SAN)-based data replication. The solution uses Double-Take Software’s GeoCluster® to extend the benefits of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 failover clustering and Hyper-V offering customers an unprecedented opportunity to have both a local and remote availability solution for their virtual machines using a single technology. GeoCluster provides the ability to create single site, or site-to-site, clusters using replicated copies of virtual machines, making quick migrations possible across geographic locations and also eliminating shared storage as a single point of failure, ensuring the highest levels of protection for virtual machines.

Traditionally, server migration is complex, time-consuming and expensive. Disparate hardware requires manual configuration, data and applications are offline during moves and IT staff are trapped in the office on weekends trying to make it all work. Now, there’s another option: Double-Take® Move continuously captures byte-level changes to a server’s OS, applications and data and replicates those changes to new physical or virtual hardware at any location, locally or globally. Double-Take Software workload portability products are the most efficient tools on the market for right-sizing and consolidating datacenters and moving servers between locations.

• Perform Live X2X migrations
• Move workloads between virtual platforms with V2V functionality
• Eliminate Downtime for Server or Storage Migrations
• Easily perform site or data center consolidation
• Rapidly migrate between virtual and physical workloads (P2V, V2P)

Download PDF version of Server Consolidation and Workload Optimization White Paper

Contributions for this vendor neutral technology paper have been provided by Blade.org members including, IBM, Emulex, Double-Take Software, NetApp and APC by Schneider Electric.

Executive Summary

I thought this was an interesting post from Priya Alabi at Intel, a strategic alliance partner of Double-Take Software, on the importance of delivering Dynamic Virtual Clients to ease desktop provisioning and management. Intel.
Managed IT with netBoot/i from Double-Take software
Posted by Priya Abani on Mar 23, 2009 4:26:32 PM
Intel has been working with multiple ISVs to implement Dynamic Virtual Clients. Implementing netBoot/i™ solutions from Double-Take software simplifies desktop management, and provides IT providers and end-users with the right mix of management capabilities (centralized storage, recoverability) without compromising user-experience even for the most demanding applications. Central management of operating system and applications reduces management complexity of patching multiple desktops and offers cost reduction and security by eliminating hard drives from desktops.
Read the rest of the article here and view the technology in the attached case study.

New version also includes enhancements for application management and hierarchical storage management

SOUTHBOROUGH, Mass. – March 18, 2009 – Double-Take® Software (NASDAQ: DBTK), a leading provider of workload optimization software, today announced the availability of the latest version of its flagship Double-Take® for Windows product and enhancements to other products in the company’s suite including complete platform support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. Double-Take for Windows solves IT managers’ workload portability and availability challenges by making it easy to migrate physical workloads into virtual machines with minimal user downtime and to protect the uptime of critical workloads on physical and virtual machines by using real-time replication and failover.

Expert Session Overview

Though server virtualization technology has changed the IT landscape for the better in many ways, it has also presented several new challenges. One of the chief concerns that IT decision makers face is how to most effectively migrate between disparate server and storage infrastructures without halting production applications or requiring extensive manual intervention. Using a combination of real-time data replication and full-server failover technologies for workload migration can be an effective way to address this challenge.
Keeping Data Current Throughout the P2V Process\ December 2-23, 2008 Watch this expert session video and then post questions or comments for the expert to respond to.
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First let’s start with what Dynamic Infrastructure is defined as by Wikipedia: an infrastructure technology model which provides the ability to intelligently move workloads in a data center anytime, anywhere, for whatever purpose. Whether it is for migrations, provisioning, enhancing performance or building co-location facilities all with inherent security and data protection. The feature benefits include enhancing performance, scalability, ability to performing routine maintenance on either physical or virtual systems all while minimizing interruption to business operations all while reducing cost for IT.

Server virtualization has become a popular trend in enterprise IT. When migrating from a physical to a virtual environment, IT professionals need to ensure that their company’s data is protected, current and readily available. Knowledge Center contributor Brace Rennels explains the steps to take to protect your company’s data during a virtual migration.

Now that Microsoft has officially entered the hypervisor market, it’s even easier for companies to make the jump from a physical to virtual environment. For every company that has already made the jump, there are dozens of others missing out on the convenience, flexibility and ROI of virtualization.

Over the years as server technology has improved the need for migrating to better performing servers, whether physical or virtual, has always been a challenge. Some of the challenges with migrating servers have been keeping the data current and minimizing downtime during the process. Once the migration or provisioning process has started users are not allowed to access the production server until the conversion is complete in order to create a duplicate image of that server. If a process is used where users can access the system, like with some P2V products then the production server remains online but the changes made after the conversion started are usually not included and a differential backup has to be applied once the server is migrated. This is the migration paradigm. How do you provision the most up to date changes without incurring significant downtime during the process?