Vision Solutions has unveiled a version of its Double-Take replication and disaster recovery technology that can be operated as a cloud-based service.

Available immediately, Vision’s Double-Take Cloud Protection and Recovery (CP&R) CloudStack Edition is aimed primarily at service providers in the first instance, enabling them to offer customers a cloud-hosted disaster recovery service.

Vision said it already has one UK-based service provider, Pertechtual, signed up to deliver recovery-as-a-service to business customers using the platform. But that firms can also deploy the service inside their own on-premise private cloud environment, if required, it added.

“Virtualisation is already used for both production systems and disaster recovery, and cloud is set to follow the same trend,” Ian Masters, Vision Solutions sales director for Northern Europe told V3.

Masters said he expects the next logical step will be for companies to adopt the cloud for disaster recovery, rather than moving their entire production environment to the cloud.

The Double-Take CP&R CloudStack Edition integrates with the open-source Apache CloudStack or Citrix CloudPlatform frameworks, enabling service providers to deliver a self-service disaster recovery tool with a pay-per-use pricing model to their customers.

Vision’s technology performs a synchronous, real-time byte-level replication of servers, capturing changes as they happen and sending it across the internet to the repository to provide an up-to-the minute replica of the systems being protected.

The availability of this cloud-based replica allows customers to do a rapid recovery should disaster strike, but it could also be used for cloud migrations, according to Masters.

“It presents customers with a fantastic opportunity to use the same technology to migrate their production infrastructure to the cloud, if they wish. Then you can turn the solution around and re-purpose your on-premise infrastructure as the disaster recovery target,” he said.

Vision Solutions also announced a Double-Take SDK that now provides application programming interfaces (APIs). This enables service providers or enterprise firms to integrate its disaster recovery, high availability or migration tools into their management system or cloud orchestration platform.

As part of the same move, Vision said it was allowing service providers to consume licences for its Double-Take and MIMIX tools under a metered usage scheme.

MIMIX is Vision’s line of high availability and disaster recovery tools aimed at users of IBM”s iSeries systems.

VMware is stepping up efforts to deliver on its vision of the software-defined datacentre with the acquisition of Virsto, a storage virtualisation vendor, while also rolling out automation tools in the shape of vSphere with Operations Management.

The firm said it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire Virsto Software, whose storage hypervisor technology is aimed at bringing the same kind of optimisation and flexibility to enterprise storage that VMware has already delivered to servers.

VMware said that the move will fill a gap in its current capabilities, helping to optimise storage alongside its existing technologies for managing server and networking resources.

“Our customers have told us that managing performance and data services for virtual machines can be challenging, especially in I/O-intensive environments like virtual desktops,” said John Gilmartin, vice president of storage and availability, writing on VMware’s blog.

Virsto offers a storage management platform that can accelerate I/O performance on any block-based storage system while providing services such as virtual machine snapshot and cloning capabilities, Gilmartin added.

VMware plans to continue to offer Virsto’s standalone virtual appliance for vSphere in the short term, but is looking to integrate Virsto’s architecture and data management services into future VMware products further down the road.

As part of the same vision, VMWare also unveiled vSphere with Operations Management, integrating the vSphere platfrom with a tool to deliver automated operations for vSphere deployments.

This uses analytic capabilities to peer into the performance, health and efficiency of the virtualised environment, and then use this data to proactively manage performance and capacity.

“Utilising the vSphere health model, vSphere with Operations Management extrapolates and presents data for managing performance and capacity more effectively than any other current or promised solutions,” said Ben Scheerer of VMware’s Cloud and Infrastructure Management product group.

VMware vSphere with Operations Management is set to be available later this quarter in Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus editions, priced from $1,745 per processer with no core, vRAM or virtual machine limits.

VMware also announced VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced, a backup and recovery tool for business critical applications such as Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server running in virtual environments.

Based on EMC’s Avamar, vSphere Data Protection Advanced will ship this quarter for $1,095 per processor, with no restrictions on the number of protected virtual machines.

An update to Dropbox for Teams aims to give IT administrators more control and visibility options for cloud-hosted files.

Updates include the ability for admins to create downloadable activity reports and set sharing controls for user’s accounts. The move continues Dropbox’s push to gain a foot hold in the enterprise market.

“People at over two million businesses and 95 per cent of Fortune 500 companies are using Dropbox – from law firms working with their clients to international businesses staying in sync across the world,” wrote Dropbox software engineer Emil Ibrishimov in a blog post.

“Today, we’re launching a completely redesigned admin console and new sharing controls to help Dropbox for Teams admins manage their group.”

The updated version of Dropbox for Teams includes the ability for admins to view recent activity, third party app usage and web session information for all members in a given team.

Admins will be able to filter that information by logins, passwords, apps, devices, and members using the revamped admin console. Dropbox’s reworked offering also includes the ability to set a team members access to files on a case-by-case basis.

Security will see a revamp from the update as admins can now require team members to use two-step verification on a member-by-member basis. Dropbox originally released its two-step verification system last year after a password breach occurred late last year.

Dropbox’s updates attempt to put the firm’s service in the same field as competitor’s enterprise solutions. Last year, its cloud storage competitor Box released a slew of security and app integration tools aimed at increasing usability within the IT field.

Dropbox for Teams is currently available to firms for a starting price of $795 a year for up to five team members and 1TB of storage space.

Virtualisation management firm VMTurbo has updated its Operations Manager tool with broader platform support and enhancements to its policy engine.

Available immediately, VMTurbo Operations Manager 3.3 broadens its virtualisation platform support to include VMware’s vCloud 5.1 and Microsoft’s Hyper-V 2012, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation 3.1, as well as adding CloudStack and Citrix XenServer.

The new version also enhances the usability of the system, giving customers greater visibility of information about their virtual machines and also more flexible control over the timing of any changes the suite recommends.

VMTurbo itself is a relatively new firm, founded with the aim of simplifying the operation of complex virtualised datacentres. Operations Manager takes a radical approach to this, automating as many management tasks as possible and using techniques borrowed from economics to balance resources against demand.

“We call it the Economic Scheduling Engine, as it models the IT environment as buyers and sellers, using supply and demand to drive resource allocation decisions,” VMTurbo’s managing director for Northern Europe, Andrew Mallaband, told V3.

Under this model, applications sell transactions to the business while buying memory, CPU and disk resources from virtual machines, using virtual pricing which varies as resource utilisation fluctuates throughout the datacentre, just like a market-driven ecosystem.

Version 3.3 aims to improve the usability of Operations Manager for service providers and enterprise customers alike by allowing for more customisation, according to Mallaband.

“We deal with lots of enterprises and cloud service providers who are keen to expose information from our system and some of the control functions to their customers,” he said.

Virtualisation tools specialist Veeam has released an add-on for its Backup & Replication 6.5 platform that can automatically copy virtual machine backups to cloud-based storage services.

The tool offers a time-saving alternative for administrators who need to ensure backups are held in an off-site repository to comply with regulations.

Available immediately, Veeam Backup & Replication Cloud Edition enables IT departments to automate the copying of backups to any of 15 different cloud-based storage services, including Amazon’s S3 or Glacier platforms, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace or HP Cloud.

However, instead of issuing a major update to its Backup & Replication suite, which provides backup protection for virtual machines and their data in VMware or Hyper-V environments, Veeam is delivering it as a separate add-on to Backup & Replication 6.5 that deals solely with transferring files off-site.

“Backup & Replication Cloud Edition still counts as version 6.5, but we haven’t changed the code. It is implemented as an engine that you can install next to your current 6.5 deployment that offloads your backup files to a location off-premise,” Veeam chief evangelist in EMEA Hans De Leenheer told V3.

He explained that customers had were happy with Backup & Replication 6.5, but that for regulatory reasons some needed a way to get backups to an off-site location, in case their offices should be destroyed.

While not addressing any major technical issue, the tool makes it as easy as possible for an administrator to configure a regular, automatic transfer of backup files to the cloud repository.

Veeam also implemented the feature this way because backing up virtual machines directly to the cloud would have a huge impact on latency, according to De Leenheer.

Likewise, the tool does not enable users to perform a recovery directly from the cloud. Instead, users must use the cloud engine to retrieve the correct off-site archive before kicking off a local recovery, as is the normal procedure for Backup & Replication 6.5.

“It’s just a convenient and affordable alternative to sending tape to a traditional offsite backup vault,” said De Leenheer.

Veeam Backup & Replication Cloud Edition is available under annual subscription licensing. Existing customers can add a Cloud Edition license to their existing Veeam Backup & Replication perpetual licenses, the firm said.

LogMeIn has officially launched Cubby, a cloud-based storage service that lets users synchronise content across PCs and mobile devices, as well as share files with friends and colleagues securely.

Available now, Cubby is being slated as an alternative to Dropbox and as a potential solution for businesses seeking a secure solution for employees using smartphones and tablets to view company documents, as part of the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend.

Like other online storage services, Cubby has a free edition – called Basic – that provides 5GB of cloud storage, but a perk is that consumers can earn up to 20GB more if they get others to sign up for the service.

Meanwhile, a paid-for Cubby Pro version includes 100GB storage per user and additionally offers a feature called DirectSync that enables users to synchronise an unlimited amount of data between devices and computers, without it being stored online.

Cubby also allows users to set any folder or folders as shared, rather than having to drop files into a specific folder as with Dropbox, according to LogMeIn.

“Cloud file sharing services too often force people to make choices between personal or business use, simplicity or flexibility, accessibility or security – compromises that don’t reflect the realities of how technology is increasingly adopted and used in today’s mobile workplace,” said LogMeIn chief executive Michael Simon.

“Cubby is designed to deliver the elegance and ease of use individuals enjoy with the security and flexibility businesses demand.”

The service builds on experience LogMeIn has gleaned from its remote access service, and uses 256-bit AES encryption to secure all communications.

Any files added to Cubby through the desktop application are automatically protected using client-side encryption. Meanwhile Cubby Locks, a feature of the Cubby Pro version, lets account owners require a password for access to shared folders and activate another level of protection by encrypting the access keys with their password.

Cubby requires a desktop app for Windows PCs or Macs, with mobile client support for phones or tablets running Android as well as Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices.

The Cubby Pro paid-for version is available on subscription pricing from £4.46 per user per month, or can prepaid at £53.56 per user per year.

LogMeIn offers a range of cloud-based services, including remote access and IT helpdesk tools.

The booming market for cloud services and hosted mobile applications is going to drive phenomenal gain in low-power microserver sales over the coming years.

Research firm IHS said that over the next year sales in microservers will nearly triple, while 2016 will see sales rise as high as 1.2 million units.

The company estimates that 88,000 units were sold in 2012, up from just 19,000 in 2011. For the next year, sales are expected to clock in at 291,000 units, an increase of 230 per cent.

Analysts believe that the growth in microservers has been driven by the rise of both cloud computing services and mobile devices. With users increasingly looking to access hosted applications, demand is growing for the low power consumption and scalability offered by micro server hardware.

“With cloud computing and data centers in high demand in order to serve more smartphones, tablets and mobile PCs online, specific aspects of server design are becoming increasingly important, including maintenance, expandability, energy efficiency and low cost,” said IHS senior analyst for compute platforms Peter Lin.

“Such factors are among the advantages delivered by micro servers compared to higher-end machines like mainframes, supercomputers and enterprise servers—all of which emphasize performance and reliability instead.”

Vendors have also started to take notice of the growth in demand for low-power servers. ARM has made servers the centrepiece on its hardware roadmap, while Intel has sought to introduce its Atom platform into the low-power server market.

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Microsoft has revealed more information on the datacentre efficiency tricks it employs to power its Bing search and web mail services.

As firms such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon drive the adoption of cloud services, the datacentre has become a key battleground – not least because the IT industry comes under scrutiny from environmental campaigners concerned over rampant energy consumption.

“Increasing datacentre efficiency will make the cloud cost-effective for more scenarios and extend the benefits of online computing to many more aspects of human life,” says Aman Kansal, a researcher at Microsoft. 

Kansal told an audience at Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University that the firm was able to make dramatic efficiency gains by moving from a traditional hot-aisle, cold-aisle set-up to containerised modules.

According to Kansal, Microsoft cut the PUE rating for its Bing and Hotmail datacentres from 2.0 to just 1.05 in 2011. PUE – or power usage effectiveness – is a measure of datacentre efficiency that is calculated by dividing the total datacentre power usage by the power used by IT equipment.

By locking hardware in to containers, Microsoft has been able to reduce the amount of power it needs to cool its infrastructure, allowing some servers to run hotter, while targeting the cooling to where it is needed most.

But when it comes to energy use, PUE only tells half the story – of course it is better for cloud services to put more of the energy it consumes in to running the IT infrastructure, but it’s even better if the IT infrastructure is energy efficient.

By studying the energy consumption needed by applications such as search or webmail hosting, Microsoft has been able to tune its servers to fit the power requirements of its applications, Kansal reported. It has been drilling down into power consumption of individual hardware components as well as software containers such as virtual machines and software processes.

There’s still a long way to go before cloud firms eco-boasts will be completely believable, but Kansal’s work gives a glimpse of where the industry leaders are going.

06 Feb 2013

Cloud Services for small and medium businesses (SMB) is a $45bn industry, according to a new study by cloud hosting firm Parallels.

It was found that 22 per cent of SMBs are currently managing websites through cloud services with another 30 per cent of SMBs planning to adopt cloud-based website management tools by 2015.

“Cloud computing has given SMBs access to computing power, applications, and services that were formerly available only to large enterprises,” Parallels wrote in its study.

“Looking at the global IT landscape in 2012, we see SMBs’ participation in the cloud market spanning the full gamut – from having a mature cloud services market to needing education about what cloud services are.”

According to Parallels, the SMB market for cloud services will be worth $68bn by 2014, double its total estimated worth in 2011.

Parallels expects to see major growth in the hosted infrastructure and business applications segment of SMB cloud computing.

The study projects that the hosted infrastructure space will be worth $27bn in 2014. Parallels reported that the space garnered $14bn in 2011.

Cloud-based business applications for SMBs are also expected to double in 2014. Parallels says the industry segment will be worth $20bn next year. Cloud business applications only garnered $9bn in the SMB market in 2011.

The growth of the industry stems from two reasons. SMBs are now seeing an advantage to moving their in-house solutions to the cloud, while firms are now “leapfrogging” traditional in-house IT for cloud-based systems.

“[Some] SMBs that currently have no in-house IT solution and are moving, or planning to move, straight to the cloud. [They’re] ‘leapfrogging’ the typical intermediate step of purchasing in-house IT,” continued the firm in its study.

“These companies might have rudimentary IT components, such as external hard drives for storage or Excel workbooks for accounting, but they don’t have the kind of in-house infrastructure that the cloud converters do.”