A more dynamic infrastructure with netBoot/i and sanFly
Double-Take® Software's netBoot/i™ and sanFly™ solutions offer rich new features for more dynamic, responsive datacenter management. The result of the acquisition earlier this year of the Canadian developer emBoot, the two products use the flexibility of SAN network-based storage (iSCSI) to facilitate rapid deployment and provisioning of servers and PCs. Physical servers, virtual servers and desktop PCs can be booted from images stored on the iSCSI SAN, separating the OS and data from physical hardware. It's then a simple task to redeploy any server to a new physical or virtual platform or to an alternative site in case of failure, maintenance shutdowns or to meet changes in capacity demands. “Double-Take Software's netBoot/i plays an important role in achieving this vision by enabling us to seamlessly move servers between iSCSI and FC, lower and higher capacity hardware, and between physical and virtual machines; the result is a smooth transition between various equipment tiers” says J. Wolfgang Goerlich, network operations and security manager, Munder Capital Management.
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netBoot/i allows servers and desktop PCs to boot over the network from images stored on the iSCSI SAN. A centralised management console allows system administrators to rapidly redeploy physical or virtual systems to respond to changing capacity requirements, independently of the underlying hardware configuration. With sanFly any Windows®-based server can be configured as an iSCSI SAN storage node, supporting network booting for any system on the network. For the network administrator this means the possibility of deploying a centralised resource supporting multiple servers or desktop PCs with shared boot images. sanFly supports volume sizes of up to 2 TB, with iSCSI target disks stored as VHD files – the virtual disk format supported by Microsoft and used by its Hyper-V™ product. A sanFly iSCSI storage node can be configured and made available to servers and client PCs in just five clicks. And sanFly iSCSI storage is fully compatible with Microsoft cluster solutions.
“The addition of netBoot/i and sanFly not only positions Double-Take Software's entrance into a new market, but enhances its current offerings by providing additional flexibility to companies looking to create a more dynamic IT infrastructure” according to Lauren Whitehouse, analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group.
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Two Green IT technologies
Week by week the datacenter is getting greener and more virtual. Double-Take Software's netBoot/i and sanFly products – the result of the acquisition of emBoot Inc. of Toronto – improve datacenter energy efficiency, facilitating reduced electrical power consumption and a reduced cooling load. netBoot/i allows the deployment of diskless servers and desktops to reduce energy and cooling requirements while improving rack space management. Cost savings are achieved in power consumption and datacenter air conditioning. Software utilities such as these form part of the CIO's Green IT toolbox and are ideal add-ins for Double-Take® for Windows®, Double-Take Software's key product delivering affordable platform independent data replication with no impact on existing architectures. Closely coupled with continuous replication of the server to a remote backup site, netBoot/i and sanFly are essential components in a cost-effective workload migration strategy, ready for action at any time.
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