Vision Solutions, which has been providing information availability software and services to IT systems for two decades, is one of the few surviving IT companies that has crossed the long bridge from supporting IBM Power-based mainframes in 1992 to x86-based cloud systems in 2012.
In case you might not have heard of Vision Solutions previously, it has an installed base of more than 25,000 customers — mainly in the SMB space, although there are a number of large enterprises using it — running Windows, Linux, IBM Power Systems and cloud computing environments.
On June 5 the privately held, Irvine, Calif.-based company released Double-Take 6.0, which focuses on application and data protection across virtual, cloud and physical computing environments. It also works with mainframes, if need be — and there are plenty of those still in operation around the world.
Double-Take 6.0’s job is to provide real-time asynchronous data replication and disaster recovery, enabling immediate recovery from any system outage and simplifying the whole data backup process.
“Effective real-time data replication essentially eliminates the need for snapshots and all the hassles they bring to a system,” Doug Piper, vice president of Product Strategy for Vision Solutions, told eWEEK.
Double-Take 6.0 includes the following attributes, according to Piper:
- Ease of Use: The initial setup and ongoing management is automated allowing IT service teams to set it and forget it.
- Plug and Play Protection: A pre-configured universal virtual recovery appliance provides options for extending virtualized environments.
- Real-Time Replication: Complete, comprehensive replication in real-time instead of snapshots ensures uninterrupted availability and virtually eliminates data loss.
- No Downtime Migrations: Replication technology allows users to remain active while production environments are recreated on new systems.
- Platform Independence: This solution is hardware and storage independent and even works with different hardware and storage on both ends. And, it also can protect any application.
- Simplified Management: A unified console provides a single window into the availability environment.
The newest version of Double-Take includes the following new features, according to Piper:
- Point-in-time recovery for P2V environments: Operating alongside real-time data replication, point-in-time recovery allows customers to set up and manage scheduled VSS snapshots for protected environments across Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware platforms.
- Universal Virtual Recovery Appliance: Preconfigured virtual software appliance that automates the installation and configuration of availability environments. Auto-provisioning of the virtual environment needed to support the Universal Virtual Recovery Appliance saves time and reduces errors.
- Protection for Hyper-V virtual machines with CSV: Support for Hyper-V machines using Clustered Shared Volumes, including one-click failover and reverse allowing users to move VMs between hosts as required.
- Application protection workflows: Built-in, application-specific workflows operated from the new unified Double-Take Management Console protect key applications, such as Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server, and virtualization platforms, such as VMware and Hyper-V.
- Support for PowerShell: Enables users to manage and automate tasks using PowerShell, Microsoft’s task-based automation scripting language.
Double-Take 6.0 will be demonstrated June 11-14 in Booth 2223 at Microsoft TechEd North America 2012, Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla.
