To finish off the week we have another video release!

These two videos detail how to restore a virtual machine backup with PHD Virtual Backup version 5.1 for VMware vSphere, and Citrix Xenserver.

Restoring a VM with PHD Virtual Backup version 5.1 for VMware vSphere

Restoring a VM with PHD Virtual Backup version 5.1 for Citrix XenServer

With the PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 release this week we’ve seen lots of “how-to” video content published with it also!

This short video demonstrates the File Recovery features!

Keeping with this week’s PHD Virtual Backup theme here are two more videos. Both are quite similar, one shows you how to run a backup using the version for VMware vSphere, and the other video shows how to do it with the version for Citrix Xenserver!

Running a backup with PHD Virtual Backup version 5.1 for VMware vSphere

Running a backup with PHD Virtual Backup version 5.1 for Citrix XenServer

Today PHD Virtual Technologies Inc. issued a press release on their main site:

PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 Sets a New Standard for Efficient and Scalable Virtual Machine Data Protection of Citrix and VMware Environments

PHD Virtual Technologies, pioneer and innovator in backup and recovery for virtual machines, today released PHD Virtual Backup 5.1, an advanced data protection solution supporting VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer environments. The new releases bring advanced features, simplified deployment and integrated management to PHD’s award winning VBA™ (Virtual Backup Appliance) architecture, recognized as the most scalable virtualization backup and recovery solution on the market.

PHD Virtual solutions are purpose-built for virtualization and leverage the PHD VBA™ Architecture to provide virtualized backup and recovery for VMware and Citrix environments. This evolutionary approach delivers high performance data protection that seamlessly scales for large and distributed deployments. Unlike alternative solutions, PHD Virtual Backup removes the need to deploy and manage a separate physical server, additional software or agents for backup and recovery of the virtual environment.

“We had great success with the early release program for PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 and we are excited to make our new products generally available,” said Paul Throldahl, Senior Vice President of Sales, PHD Virtual Technologies. “Early adopters have affirmed that our new solutions are robust, yet simple to deploy and easy to use. They have demonstrated a strong preference for the seamless integration and scalability we provide for VMware and Citrix platforms over alternative solutions on the market.”

PHD Virtual is the only provider that offers virtualized backup and recovery solutions purpose-built for Citrix and VMware environments. PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 delivers unique value including:

• A completely virtualized solution leveraging the PHD VBA™
• Faster backup to meet your backup windows
• Quick restore of full vm, virtual disk or individual files to meet your RPO and RTO
• Optimizations for efficient backup over LAN and WAN environments
• Dramatically lower backup storage requirements and overall solution costs

Availability

PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 is available immediately for both VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer platforms. Both products are licensed on a per host basis and special introductory pricing is available through the end of the year.

Existing PHD Virtual customers who have licenses that are currently under maintenance are eligible for a free upgrade to the respective new product version. For additional information on available product versions and pricing, please contact your authorized partner or a PHD representative at 1-866-710-1882 or sales@phdvirtual.com

This is a reposting of Pete Del Rey’s post from PHD Virtual’s PHD Expert’s blog.

The PHD Virtual Backup (PHDVB) 5.1 release for both VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer includes advanced retention policies. These options are similar to the approach esXpress 4 took with its DeDupe Trim the Herd settings. The idea being to over time reduce and trim back your backups from retaining them daily, to weekly, to monthly and eventually a yearly backup. This makes for setting flexible retention polices for your backup archives. You can also choice to set your retention to a simplified approach with just indicating ‘number of backups to keep’. With PHDVB 5.1 the flexibility is there and the choice is yours. It also offers an archiving ability to indicate backups to never delete regardless of the retention settings.

Retention Settings: There are three options available for your retention settings.

Keep All – – This indicates do not automatically delete any backups. You are choosing to retain all of your backups.
Typical – – This is a preset configuration for the various retention settings that a typical installation may set up.
Custom – – When a user sets any option different then the Typical setting the mode will automatically be set to Custom.

Recent Backups to Keep – – This is the simplified setting to just have PHDVB keep only the last number of backups. For example if you want to always keep the last 5 backups set this option to 5. If this is the only option you want to use then set all of the additional options to 0. That will indicate do not use that retention option.

‘And keep the most recent backup from each of the last:’

Days - This indicates to keep the last number of days of backups. For example if your requirement is to always have a week of backups set this to 7.

Weeks - This further defines the retention to indicate how many of the last weeks of backups to use. For example if you want a months worth of weekly backups then set this value to 4. The weekly backup kept will be the last day of the week.

Months - This continues the retention policy for monthly backups for PHDVB to keep. If your requirement is to keep a monthly backup for each month of the year then set this option to 12. The monthly backup kept will be the last day of the month.

Years - This sets how many of the last yearly backups you wish to keep.

Retention Notes:
- Days start at 00:00:00 and include the current day.
- Weeks start on Monday and include the current week.
- Months are based on the calendar month and include the current month.
- Years are based on the calendar year and include the current year.
- Retention adjusts for Daylight Savings Time.
- Backup files marked as Archive will never be deleted

Earlier today, PHD Virtual announced the upcoming release of two exciting new products:

• PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 for VMware vSphere (ESXi & ESX)
• PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 for Citrix XenServer

There is also a Press Release Announcing PHD Virtual Backup 5.1

The new 5.1 products are currently in limited release through the PHD Virtual Early Access Program, and will be generally available later this month. Additional details on product pricing, upgrade and migration will be provided at the time of general availability.

PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 is built on the next generation of PHD’s award winning VBA™ Architecture enabling backup and recovery to be deployed as a virtualized workload directly on vSphere and XenServer platforms. This evolutionary approach enables PHD Virtual Backup to leverage the advanced capabilities of virtualization to provide seamless scalability and single pane of glass management for backup and recovery. Unlike alternative solutions, PHD Virtual Backup removes the need to deploy a separate backup server, additional hardware or software agents to manage backup and recovery of your virtual environment.

Eric Zandboer has already posted his first impressions of 5.1 here: http://www.vmdamentals.com/?p=1025

There are also webinars on November 23rd providing a sneak peek of the next generation of PHD Virtual’s Backup solutions.

This VMworld I’ve got to meet up with many old faces from previous years, and some new ones.

One person who I have followed for a while, but not met until now is Roger Lund (@RogerLund). This year is Roger’s first VMworld, although his “almost live” video streams are the best live-blogger produced content I have seen in a long time.

I suggested Roger go over to the PHD Virtual booth (#115) with Christopher Kusek (AKA @CXI) in tow to chat to Devansh Chowdhary (Territory Manager for PHD Virtual).

They produced this video interview!

I’ve been moving around the VMworld conference since it opened yesterday, and thought it best to showcase what PHD Virtual are offering.

This year PHD released the 4.0 version of it’s Backup for VMware product (previously esXpress), released Backup for Xenserver, and now at VMworld are showcasing Backup for vSphere (ESXi)!

PHD Virtual Backup for ESXi is built upon the next generation of PHD Virtual’s award winning VBA architecture, and extends support to vSphere deployments leveraging ESXi.

Features include:

The fastest and most cost effective backup that minimizes storage requirements

The most reliable solution for data integrity with source-side de-dupe and enhanced self-healing backups

Distributed, enterprise-ready architecture supporting fault tolerant deployment

If you are at VMworld drop by booth #115 at the solutions exchange and we’ll demo you any of the three backup solutions!

In today’s virtualized IT environments, providing a simplified way to manage your VMs and ensure your data is backed up and restored is critical. With PHD’s VBA™ Architecture, virtual appliances are used to manage the backup process, requiring no additional infrastructure, eliminating the use of proxy servers and removing the risk of an incomplete or failed backup. The PHD Virtual Management Appliance centralizes control of all hosts and deployed VBAs, and enables simple setup, configuration, and backup, allowing you to proactively manage the backup process within your virtual infrastructure.

Key Advantages:
• Perform Advance File-level restoration without having to go through time-consuming virtual disk mounting procedures
• TrueDedupe™ Technology: PHD deduplication takes place across all VMs over their entire lifetimes, reducing backup file sizes and storage requirements across a virtual infrastructure
• OpenRestore™ Technology: PHD provides the capability to restore data without access to the PHD software or license keys. With proper credentials any user can connect with the host machine and run a restore, thus your data is always available.

Join Us, Tuesday, August 24 at 10 AM EST for the final installment of our three webinar series focused on: Flexibility & Ease of Use.

Stop by our booth at VMworld #115 to see a sneak peak of the future release of PHD Virtual Backup solution for VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi). See a demo on PHD’s unique VBA™ architecture and enter to win an Apple iPad or latest iPhone 4.

This week we have been showcasing some of PHD Virtual’s new instructional and preview videos.

This video shows how to use the PHD Virtual Backup for VMware Setup Wizard.