SWsoft Introduces Industry’s First Zero Downtime Production Server Migration Without Costly Shared Storage

HERNDON, Va. — February 18, 2005 – IT professionals can now move virtual servers between physical servers without end-user disruption or the need for costly storage capacity with the release today of Virtuozzo for Linux 3.0 from SWsoft — a recognized leader in server virtualization and automation software.

The "zero downtime migration" capability is one of several major new features in the latest version of Virtuozzo for Linux – which also adds new template management, streamlined resource management and expanded operating system support to greatly enhance performance and automation.

SWsoft also introduced Virtuozzo for Windows 3.5.1 – which adds a "physical-to-virtual" tool that enables easy migration from a dedicated physical server to a virtual server, performance increases and updated platform support.

"SWsoft delivers a unique OS-level server virtualization solution that is ideal for a number of scenarios — including server consolidation, disaster recovery and a number of other real world uses we see IT professionals utilizing virtualization technology to achieve," said Matt Eastwood, vice president, IDC Enterprise Platform Research. "End-users are looking for zero downtime functionality in their virtualization solutions in order to enable higher value IT projects, once reserved for more scalable servers,
which are now being addressed by lower-cost alternatives."

Both the Linux and Windows versions of Virtuozzo come with extensive management tools that differentiate the products from other virtualization solutions. Significant enhancements to Virtuozzo tools include a new automated workflow tool to help manage end-user requests for additional virtual servers with pre-determined configurations.

“We see tremendous potential in the new workflow feature as a productivity booster for us,” said Eugene Martinez, systems administrator, Realm. “Because we currently provision new virtual servers every week, this should help us manage that process more efficiently.”

"Virtuozzo is the only virtualization technology for commodity Linux and Windows platforms which allows workloads to scale to large SMP, high memory systems without scalability or performance degradation," said Serguei Beloussov, CEO, SWsoft. "With these new capabilities, we are bringing the advantages of efficient virtualization technology to an even wider range of organizations by making it even easier to configure and administer highly available virtual servers."

Virtualization Simplification
The proliferation of servers in the datacenter has led to increased complexity and costs. Virtuozzo reverses this trend by dramatically reducing the need for adding physical servers (and their associated capital, power, software and management costs) by turning an existing single physical server into multiple isolated and secure virtual servers, enabling higher server utilization and availability.

The virtual servers perform and execute as independent servers with their own memory, I/O, configuration files, users and applications. Each can be re-booted independently. Virtuozzo management tools provide unified management of up to thousands of virtual servers on hundreds of physical servers.

“We already use Virtuozzo as a part of our disaster recovery planning and having the zero-downtime migration as a core feature on every Virtuozzo server will be a great asset,” said Lukas Loesche, director of IT operations, arvato mobile GmbH. “This provides further assurance that services provided to our customers will be up and running at all times.”


What is New in Virtuozzo for Linux 3.0

This latest version features improved performance and automation capabilities, including the following features and benefits:

· Zero Downtime Migration, which captures the state of an existing virtual server and its contents and migrates it to a new physical server without any interruption in service or availability. The function executes between any two servers on a network, so the capability works for any server and any application. SWsoft is the first to deliver this capability without additional requirements, such as a storage area network (SAN).

· EZtemplates make it easy for almost instant (generally 20-30 seconds) provisioning of a virtual server, so it is easy to set up and run applications on a virtual server, rather than a full server.

· Streamlined resource management that requires just a few settings to create and manage a virtual server.

· Support for distributions based on the Linux 2.6 kernel including Red Hat Enterprise Server 4.0, Fedora Core 4.0 and CentOS 4.0 and backward compatibility for 2.4 distributions.

What is New in Virtuozzo for Windows 3.5.1

This latest version includes the following features and benefits:

· New graphical VZP2V (Physical-to-Virtual) tool for administrators to easily move from a dedicated physical server to a Virtuozzo virtual server. This feature helps determine what resources a server and application require to ensure that the virtual server delivers the same performance.

· Performance increases for accessing memory and handling read/write operations, as well as making it even faster to create and migrate a virtual server.

· Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 and Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 so that the software can be run in a virtual server.

What is New in Virtuozzo Management Tools

Extensive upgrades to Virtuozzo’s suite of management tools include Virtual Server Provisioning Workflow, expanded Virtuozzo Control Center, Firewall Configuration enhancements, Multi-Virtual Server Commands, Desktop Configuration and several additional features.

Pricing and Availability
Virtuozzo for Linux 3.0, Virtuozzo for Windows 3.5.1 and Virtuozzo Management Tools are now available worldwide from SWsoft or any of its partners. Pricing for Virtuozzo starts at $1000/CPU with management tools at $1000/seat for unlimited servers.

About SWsoft
SWsoft is a recognized leader in server virtualization and automation software. With more than 10,000 customers in over 100 countries, SWsoft's suite of products delivers proven performance, reliability, manageability and value. With offices around the world, SWsoft is a high growth company funded by Bessemer Venture Partners, Insight Venture Partners and Intel Capital. For more information about SWsoft, visit www.swsoft.com. To request a live demo or for additional product information, visit www.virtuozzo.com