PHD Virtual has released version of 4.0-4 of PHD Virtual Backup. The update can be applied by running the ‘Check for Updates’ process.

This release adds support for VMware’s latest release, vSphere 4.1.

New features found in version 4.0-4:

• Supports the latest VMware release: vSphere 4.1
• Simplified configuration with fewer steps
• Improved ease of use
• Login panel now uses the VI Client registry to display available servers.
• When deploying a DeDupe appliance with an attached VMDK for backup storage, a warning is now displayed if creating the disk will cause the volume to drop below 15% free space.
• VBA location will now display file size limits based on the block size of the selected storage location.
• The daily backup report now contains a simplified HTML view with links to the full report.
• Other various bug fixes.

Download a 30 day trial of PHD Virtual Backup.

This video was released by PHD Virtual back in May during the transition period where esXpress became “PHD Virtual Backup for VMware“.

It details how to use the setup wizard. Enjoy!

PHD Virtual’s VBA™ Architecture uses virtual appliances 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.
Quality performance and future scalability is an important component when considering a backup solution.

Join us July 14 at 2PM EDT as we provide a live demo of our backup solutions highlighting key PHD features:

• TrueDeDup™ Technology: PHD’s source-side data de-duplication capability, results in much lower disk utilization, faster backups, and less network I/O traffic
• Concurrent data streams: PHD provides the capability to backup data using up to 16 concurrent streams, resulting in faster backups to meet your shrinking backup window.
• Service Console not used for backups and restores: Unlike service console based solutions which can only access a fraction of host resources PHD Virtual has access to the full host resources enabling faster backups and restores.

VMNetBac from PHD Virtual allows you to backup and restore the network configuration of your virtual machines. Designed for Windows 2000, 2003 and XP virtual machines, VMNetBac is useful as a quick recovery tool when performing intrusive or mass-upgrade type tasks where there may be a risk of losing VM network configurations.

QuickConfig reduces the time needed to deploy and configure VMware ESX 3 servers and eliminates inconsistencies that can arise with manual operations. This Windows GUI utility is based upon similar functionality in the VMware web-based Scripted Installer, but with the additional options of creating post-configuration files and loading and saving configurations for repeated use.

Support for these products is ONLY available via the PHD Virtual peer support forums.

This week the team at PHD Virtual are inviting community members to attend a FREE webinar looking at PHD Virtual’s Backup for VMware ESX in more detail.

PHD Virtual’s VBA™ Architecture results in an environment without a single point of failure. By eliminating the use of proxy servers, eliminating the risk of an incomplete or failed backup, and the inability to restore data when it is critically needed, while waiting for the proxy server to become operational.

Everyone knows that ensuring you have a good backup is important, and even more important is a successful restore. PHD’s SureRestore™ Technology provides you with the confidence and assurance in the event you have to restore – that your data will be there when you need it.

SureRestore™ Technology not only ensures that the backup is created without errors, but also increases your confidence in a successful restore.

How does SureRestore™ Technology work?

• By providing continuous data verification: data integrity is verified during both the backup and restore operations.
• Running background verification of data while it is resident on the backup storage device. If data inconsistencies are discovered, in many cases they can be fixed without user intervention.
• Proper implementation of the Changed Block Tracking API

Join PHD Virtual on Wednesday, June 16 at 2pm EST for the first installment of a 3 part webinar series tackling your concerns on the key areas of Reliability, Performance, and Security.

This video hit our YouTube channel last week and it’s about time we plugged it!

The video previews the soon to be released PHD Virtual Backup for Citrix XenServer. The video showcases the ability to run backups and restores directly from within XenCenter using the integrated PHD Virtual Backup menus.

This week we are throwing the spotlight on PHD Virtual’s bacup products that support backup for Citrix XenDesktop and VMware ESX environments.

Today we look at PHD’s backup solution for Xenserver!

PHD Virtual Backup For Citrix XenServer

PHD Virtual Backup for Citrix XenServer is the first backup and recovery solution purpose built for virtualized environments to be certified in the Citrix Ready program. Using PHD Virtual Backup for Citrix XenServer/XenDesktop, customers will enjoy the benefits of:

• The fastest and most cost effective backup that minimizes storage requirements
• The most reliable solution for data integrity with source side deduplication and enhanced self healing backups
• Since PHD Virtual’s products will support both XenServer and XenDesktop, customers can leverage the same solution across their virtual environment.

PHD is built for use with virtual platforms, it uses virtual appliances and doesn’t compromise hypervisor performance. PHD Virtual Backup is cost effective because there is no additional hardware to deploy or additional software licenses required.

Backups are controlled from within XenCenter, giving end users a highly desired single pane of glass control of their infrastructure. The PHD Dashboard contains status info about backups. Multiple PHD vApps can be deployed in a Citrix XenServer Resource Pool.

• PHD Dedupe is our patent pending technology which creates pointers to blocks of data used by multiple backups. Compression can be enabled or disabled (such as when used with hardware dedupe storage) PHD’s approach to backup features source-side deduplication and compression which reduces network and target storage requirements
• Change Block Tracking (CBT) also called Differential Snapshot Tracking will be supported – this significantly reduces backup time by skipping unchanged blocks. The result reduces the load on the SAN delivering backup data to our vApp. Where CBT is not available, PHD Virtual Backup will parse all blocks to determine what has changed – this flexible approach uses more SAN I/O but will then deliver reduced I/O to backup storage target preserving the storage benefit.
• Verification of data backup is an area that PHD introduced several years ago and this functionality is present in PHD Virtual Backup for Citrix XenServer. In fact, administrators will be able to choose from several modes: Quick V for new data blocks, Full V used before backup and Backup V to scan random blocks after backup.
• Parallel Backups provides the ability to process multiple VMs with multiple virtual disks in parallel processing/multi-threading. The initial release supports 4 simultaneous backup streams per vApp.

For Restoration: PHD Virtual Backup provides assistance whether the restoration is a mistakenly deleted file or the complete loss of a data center facility. The administrator can choose from the following options:

• File Level Restoration (FLR) – A key feature that differentiates PHD Virtual from other solutions, FLR allows administrators to extract single or multiple file(s) from block level backup.
• Application Level Restoration (ALR) – this level of restoration is not offered in most image level backup products; PHD Virtual will offer it for select applications including Microsoft Exchange which will allow ability to export a mailbox or single email from the block level backup.
• VM Level Restoration (VMLR) – enables the restoration of either single disk or complete VM from backup helping administrators to restore an environment from complete loss quickly and efficiently. The vApp will connect to a new virtual disk and restore data to this location – passing from one VM to another – with minimal use of XenServer DOM0 interface.
• Export Share – this is the interface to take PHD Virtual Backup data from disk to tape in XenServer native format. It utilizes Date Smart Dynamic Export (DSDE) which allows you to select VMs for export to tape based on when backups were completed and by VM name.

PHD Virtual Backup for Citrix XenServer will be available for commercial use on September 1, 2010.

This weekend the emails confirming the vExpert awards went out, and among the people awarded was PHD Virtual’s own Alex Mittell!

The VMware vExpert Award is given to individuals who have significantly contributed to the community of VMware users over the past year. vExperts are book authors, bloggers, VMUG leaders, tool builders, and other IT professionals who share their knowledge and passion with others. These vExperts have gone above and beyond their day jobs to share their technical expertise and communicate the value of VMware and virtualization to their colleagues and community.

VMware vExpert Benefits:

* Public recognition of the vExpert award with a certificate, gift, permission to display a logo, and inclusion in any public vExpert listing
* Access to a private vExpert community of your peers
* Free subscription to conference session materials on VMworld.com
* Access to exclusive events, licenses, and other opportunities to participate in activities with VMware, such as private beta programs. vExperts do not represent VMware and are not required to participate in any activities

Congratulations to Alex and all of the other community members who received the award!

VMDK Stub File Generator

A free trouble-shooting tool for VMware administrators. This new stub file generator is an absolute necessity when a corrupt VMDK file prevents you from accessing your flat file backup data. PHD Virtual Technologies created this tool for our own use so that we could recreate new VMDK files easily. So many customers have requested it that we are now releasing it into the virtualization community.

VirtualSAN

Virtual SAN appliance for VMware ESX 3 Server provides the benefits of shared VMFS storage without the cost of a SAN. Utilizing otherwise unused local storage in the ESX server, Virtual SAN facilitates enterprise-level features such as vMotion, DRS and HA. All volume data is synchronously replicated between hosts, providing full failover capability with data integrity in the event of host, disk or appliance failure. The Virtual SAN appliance was designed to be as easy to configure as possible and full documentation is available to assist you with implementing this solution for VMware storage virtualization.

Support for these products are ONLY available via the PHD Virtual peer support forums.

PHD Virtual Technologies, pioneer and innovator in backup and recovery for virtual machines, announced today that it has signed an investment agreement with Citrix Systems, a leading provider of virtual computing solutions that help companies deliver IT as an on-demand service .  In coordination with the arrangement, Insight Venture Partners made an additional funding investment. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“PHD Virtual Technologies is a prime addition to the rapidly growing XenServer ecosystem with the recent expansion of its enterprise-class backup and recovery offerings to include Backup for Citrix XenServer,” said Andy Cohen, senior director of strategic development, Citrix.  “The technology and team make PHD Virtual Technologies a strong partner and attractive investment opportunity.  We look forward to working with them to meet the needs of joint customers and continue to grow our opportunities in the server virtualization market.”

“As our customers virtualize increasingly critical workloads, they want the flexibility of a heterogeneous hypervisor environment and scalable systems management tools.  The business objectives of the Citrix XenServer Product Group and PHD Virtual are very much aligned,” said Thomas Charlton, Chairman and CEO of PHD Virtual Technologies. “We will use this financing event to accelerate our worldwide expansion and capitalize on the market opportunity that exists for our technology in XenServer and XenDesktop deployments.”

“We are happy to have Citrix join PHD Virtual as shareholders and strategic partners.  XenServer and XenDesktop are both growing very strongly and have tremendous growth potential in the virtualization market,” said Michael Triplett, Managing Director, Insight Venture Partners. “We are pleased to extend PHD Virtual’s unique software architecture, and best-in-class backup and disaster recovery for virtual environments to support both XenServer and XenDesktop.”

PHD Virtual has just announced their new Backup for Citrix XenServer® product which builds on the robust legacy of the award-winning esXpress 4.0.  PHD Virtual’s products are the only enterprise data protection solutions that operate independent of the hypervisor offering greater stability and more security.  Customers got their first look at the new XenServer product during the recent Citrix Synergy™ in San Francisco.

Using PHD Virtual Backup for Citrix XenServer, customers will enjoy the benefits of

• The fastest and most cost effective backup that minimizes storage requirements
• The most reliable solution for data integrity with source side deduplication and enhanced self healing backups
• And since PHD Virtual’s products already support XenDesktop®, leveraging the same solution across their virtual environment.

PHD Virtual Backup for Citrix XenServer will be commercially available in September.