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This is becoming a trend: Once again, data migration and integration news is at the top of the tech business lineup.
JetStream Software, which on April 3 launched both itself and a next-generation cross-cloud data management platform, joins existing traffic on the data migration and integration virtual highway. Its new JetStream Cross-Cloud Platform gives cloud service providers and Fortune 500 enterprises an alternative way to provide workload migration, resource elasticity and disaster-recovery-as-a-service continuity across multi-cloud and multi-data center infrastructures.
A little background: You might have read that Salesforce spent a whopping $6.5 billion March 20 to acquire MuleSoft to power its new integration cloud. A week later, Adobe partnered with SnapLogic—and could possibly acquire it in the future—to integrate its myriad complicated marketing and service clouds.
Lots of Action in This IT Sector
Back in January, Deloitte—a respected consultancy that has been investing heavily in acquiring new-gen tech IP—brought hybrid cloud management and data integrator ATADATA into its growing fold. Analysts expect more such acquisitions and/or partnerships coming in 2018.
On April 2, we reported that Workato, which has built its intelligent automation and integration platform to be usable by line-of-business staff, has hooked up with Apttus, a growing player in quote-to-cash and contract lifecycle management software, to expand both companies’ services.
There’s a major reason for all of this activity: These products and services are desperately needed in the real world of production. Now it’s San Jose, Calif.-based JetStream’s turn to take a bow.
Founded by an experienced enterprise IT management team from FlashSoft Software, which was acquired by SanDisk in 2012 (CTO Serge Shats, CEO Tom Critser and President Rich Petersen), JetStream also introduced JetStream Migrate. This integration/migration package, which does not require a system to be stopped or taken down during production, already has several beta-level enterprise customers using it, including a top-5 U.S. financial services firm and a top-5 European telecommunications firm.
Workload Agility is Now Simply Expected
“We seem to be having the same expectations (as in years gone by) for performance, availability and reliability, but now we’re complicating things by insisting on greater agility,” Petersen told eWEEK. “It used to be that once you powered a system on, you didn’t breathe on it. Now, we just say: ‘Let’s just move that VM somewhere else.’ In fact, you just expect everything to just work.
“We will get there, but it’s an incremental, almost not-completely-solved problem.”
The market opportunity for cross-cloud migration and integration solutions is significant: Research and advisory firm Gartner has reported that the disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) market is estimated at approximately $2.01 billion, with an expected growth to $3.7 billion through 2021.
Many cross-cloud operations, such as enterprise hybrid cloud deployment and cloud migration, still require significant professional services, but improvements in cloud-native tools can increase efficiency and productivity, Petersen said.
What JetStream Brings to the Table
JetStream Cross-Cloud Platform provides built-for-the-cloud data management capability in an all-software, hypervisor-integrated package for multi-cloud, multi-data center operations. The platform is designed to complement VMware-based cloud infrastructures offered by VMware Cloud Provider Partners and VMware Cloud on AWS, Petersen said.
Two major business benefits of the Cross-Cloud Platform, according to JetStream, are:
- The platform will enable reliable data replication for disaster recovery (DR) and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) with high performance and minimal impact on application performance; and
- on-premises data centers will gain cloud elasticity with seamless workload migration to and from CSPs without interruption—all with enterprise-grade performance and availability.
Cloud Migration Tools
JetStream Migrate is a key component of the JetStream Cross-Cloud Platform. This, according to Petersen, is the first data replication solution for cloud migration to run as an I/O filter in VMware vSphere. It facilitates the seamless live migration of enterprise virtual machines and their workloads from on-premises data centers to the cloud, he said.
Key features advantages include:
- live migration supported, even when data is replicated on a data transport device;
- live migration without snapshots, for better application performance;
- fault tolerant – if interrupted, data replication continues from point of interruption;
- migration prediction – forecasts time required, optimal data transport method;
- support for migration groups, so interdependent VMs migrate together; and
- simple, lightweight deployment and management.
Partnerships With Some Familiar Names
The JetStream Software engineering team collaborated with VMware on the vSphere API for IO Filter framework, a key technology for the JetStream Cross-Cloud Platform. The company continues to partner closely with VMware to deliver specific capabilities that will complement VMware’s cloud offerings, including VMware Cloud Provider Partners and VMware Cloud on AWS.
JetStream Software is also partnering with leading innovators in cloud computing, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Red Hat. The company’s application and infrastructure partners include Dell EMC, Cisco and HPE.
The JetStream Cross-Cloud Platform benefits from an investment of 200 developer years by the JetStream Software engineering team. A key component of the platform, JetStream Accelerate, typically increases virtual computing capacity by 2 to 3 times and increases application performance 3 to 5 times, Petersen said.
Now that it now has cloud-scale deployment and management capabilities, this advanced software has been deployed in hundreds of data centers worldwide. As a result, leading cloud architects from global enterprises and CSPs are actively collaborating with JetStream Software to further define product requirements and engage in proof-of-concepts with the JetStream Cross-Cloud Platform, Petersen said.
Product Availability
JetStream Migrate is currently in customer beta evaluation and will be generally available in Q2 2018, Petersen said. The software will be delivered by JetStream Software CSP partners.
JetStream Accelerate is available now for VMware vSphere, Windows Server/Hyper-V and Linux/KVM environments. JetStream Accelerate is sold through channel partners and resellers, including Arrow, SHI, ePlus and others, the company said.
For more information and to see a video about JetStream, go here.