Vizioncore has recently released a series of videos demonstrating their products. Obviously these have a marketing spin put on them, but they do a great job of explaining what each product does and the benefit they bring to a VI3 customer.

esxRanger Professional:
http://www.vizioncore.com/Videos/esxrangerPro_SC.html

esxMigrator:
http://www.vizioncore.com/Videos/esxmigrator_SC.html

esxCharter:
http://www.vizioncore.com/Videos/esxCharter_SC.html

esxReplicator:
http://www.vizioncore.com/Videos/esxReplicator_SC.html

On a side note, I’d love to see PHD Consulting do a video demonstration of their Esxpress product. Both companies claim to have the fastest technology for backing up VM’s.

Vizioncore is going to be conducting a webcast covering their 1 - 2 Punch strategy on October 25th. This will feature their esxRanger product, and how it compares and compliments VMware’s Consolidated Backup product.

You can register for this event here:

http://www.vizioncore.com/agenda_page_esxR_10-25.html

Also:

http://www.vi411.org/2006/08/30/esx-ranger-and-vmware-consolidated-backup.html

Since my last blog about Consolidated Backup I’ve had a lot of people ask me how it compares to esxRanger.

These 2 products are both competitive and complimentary. They are competitive because both attempt to provide a faster, more efficient solution for backing up your virtual machines. However, there is a key difference. Consolidated Backup provides a “file level” backup that enables you to backup a single file. esxRanger backs up vmdk files (virtual disks) as a single file.

esxRanger makes restoring an entire virtual machine extremely simple by allowing an administrator to restore only 1 file. To restore an entire virtual machine with Consolidated Backup you’d first need to install an operating system (preferably from template). Then you can restore your data from your backup agent.

Conversly, if you wanted to restore a single file using esxRanger, it can be a complicated process. You’d first need to restore the vmdk files associated with the virtual machine, and then restart it in a development environment, start the VM and then copy the needed file. This is far too complicated for just 1 file.

That’s why Vizioncore (developers of esxRanger) developed what they call their 1 - 2 punch. This approach uses both esxRanger and Consolidated Backup thereby providing both file level and “single image” backups, and therefore simplified VM and file restore. You get the best of both worlds.

http://www.vizioncore.com/downloads/1-2%20punch.pdf

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_consolidated_backup.pdf

I found something interesting in the VMware Forums:

“The upgrade path in the ESX 3.0.1 release will significantly reduce the upgrade downtime in going from an ESX 2.x to ESX 3.x environment for customers using VirtualCenter. Using VMotion and Relocate, customers will be able to migrate their ESX 2 / VMFS 2 virtual machines to the new ESX 3 / VMFS 3 environment one at a time without any downtime.”

It appears that there is going to be a new upgrade path that will eliminate downtime for customers. This is very interesting! One of the biggest drawbacks to upgrading from 2.5.X to 3.0 is the scheduled downtime.

One has to wonder though, how does this compete with Vizioncore’s esxMigrator? I’m not sure how Vizioncore is going to spin this. When VMware released Consolidated Backup they claimed it was not a competitor to esxRanger. Instead they released a white paper talking about using both in kind of a “1 - 2″ punch. The whitepaper proposed using Consolidated Backup for file-level backup, and esxRanger to backup the .vmdk files as a single file.

Now, it almost seems like VMware is squeezing out Vizioncore….

You can read the thread at:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=51755

To learn more about esxMigrator:

http://www.vizioncore.com/esxMigrator.html

Vizioncore may have done it again. As you may or may not know, Vizioncore is the company that developed esxRanger, allowing VMware customers to backup live vmdk files, without suspending or halting the VM.

They have also released esxReplicator, which allows for esx-host based replication of virtual machines. This is great for people who want to replicate their VMware environment for DR purposes, but lack the ability to run SAN based replication like Mirrorview or SRDF.

Now, they have just released esxMigrator aimed at easing the migration from VMware 2.5.X to VI 3. Their website states:

“A GUI-driven management tool to help ease the migration process and enable companies to leverage the new efficiencies of VI3, esxMigrator completes the migration with minimal downtime. The existing production environment can still be used by the workforce, even as individual virtual machines are being replicated and ported to the new production server. During the migration process, the source virtual machine remains intact and unmodified. Because the source retains its integrity until the cutover to the new server is completed, administrators can leverage this feature to support roll-back contingency plans. The destination virtual machine is also migrated in a consistent state, keeping all data intact. This migration process allows downtime to be minimized — even for complex environments — to a simple required reboot at the end of the upgrade process, which can be as little as 60 seconds. A scheduling function allows administrators to control reboots in strict timetables to plan downtime. esxMigrator can be used to migrate multiple virtual machines simultaneously and requires no scripting, eliminating manual efforts. Because esxMigrator can be used by any level administrator easily, migrations can be handled by any available IT staff.”

Pretty cool! This is going to make migrating to VI 3 a lot easier than it currently is.

Go to http://www.vizioncore.com/, check out their product line, and then send me your comments.