New & Improved - 25 Apr 2007

CiRBA Provides Roadmap to Virtualization and Server Consolidation

CiRBA's CiRBA data center intelligence solution provides server consolidation and virtualization analysis, making it easier for you to identify all consolidation and virtualization opportunities, create step-by-step action plans, and provide pre- and post-consolidation metrics to quantify cost savings. CiRBA's Vice President of Marketing, Chuck Tatham, describes the product as bridging the gap between strategy consulting and execution (i.e., consolidation, virtualization, migration). Tatham says that the traditional enterprise approach to virtualization uses basic discovery tools, methodologies, and people with spreadsheets. This can often lead to one of the biggest challenges organizations face: making the right choice. Tatham says that each strategy, whether you're performing blade migrations or consolidating storage, comes with constraints. "Enterprise-wide virtualization execution is complex, risky, and low impact if not done right," he says. CiRBA works by analyzing configuration, workload patterns such as CPU utilization and network and disk IO, and business constraints such as geography, business services, or maintenance windows. The solution has a new interface and reorganized menu that makes it easier to find and move between tasks. Enhanced virtual machine (VM) reporting capabilities provide detailed configuration on a VMware ESX host server and its guest VMs. Also new to CiRBA is enhanced Active Directory (AD) integration that makes it easier to manage the importation of AD groups and users. CiRBA is available in a Department Edition, which is targeted at smaller organizations that want to focus specifically on virtualization. The Enterprise Edition is for large organizations that want to analyze heterogeneous data centers and use multiple consolidation strategies. www.cirba.com, 905-731-0090, 866-731-0090

Encrypt Data on Your IP SAN Appliances

Siafu Software announced that hardware encryption is now standard on all Siafu Swarm Series IP SAN appliances. Siafu Swarm Series appliances utilize iSCSI and feature 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption with server storage consolidation, centralized management, automatic backup, and high availability. Additional features include advanced disk-to-disk snap-shot functionality for secondary storage and integrated tape backup for offsite security. The appliances are available in 1U, 2U, 3U, and 6U configurations with storage capacities ranging from 1TB to 7.5TB. Pricing for Siafu Swarm appliances starts at $8,995. www.siafusoftware.com, 858-842-2500

Archive Event Logs for Analysis and Storage

NetPro Computing announced LogADmin, the latest addition to the NetPro Active Directory Administration Suite. LogADmin compresses and archives event logs for analysis and storage, making it easy for you to create audit histories for security and compliance. LogADmin compresses event logs in their original format and uses Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption to securely consolidate and archive them. The application's sorting and filtering capabilities simplify historical forensic analysis, and a single interface is used for log retrieval and management. You can purchase LogADmin as a standalone solution or as part of NetPro's Active Directory Administration Suite. www.netpro.com, 800-998-5090

Recover Individual Email Messages and Entire Mailboxes

Revinetix announced RevOS 2.0, the newest version of the proprietary OS for Revinetix's Sentio and Volo lines of disk-based network backup appliances. New to RevOS 2.0 is a native Microsoft Exchange Server agent that lets you view, select, and restore individual email messages as well as entire mailboxes from live Exchange Server databases. NAS support has been added to the software and lets you add storage capacity for RAIDprotected file sharing. Additional updates include improved bare-metal restore capabilities that support a wider range of hardware, and improved functionality and usability so that you can back up and clone almost any hard drive. Revinetix also increased its heterogeneous OS support. www.revinetix.com, 801-263-5116

Migrate Data to and from Physical and Virtual Servers

Acronis announced Acronis Full Circle, a server-migration application that uses Acronis's Fast Accurate Simple Transmission (FAST) engine technology to move an entire server's data to and from physical and virtual servers. By using Full Circle's wizard-based controls, you can customize the migration process and migrate an entire system or specific files to another server. The software also gives you the option to migrate live and static data with either an online or offline migration. Full Circle supports multiple hardware platforms and OSs, including 32- and 64-bit servers and VMware, Microsoft, and Parallels virtual environments. For more information, contact Acronis. www.acronis.com, 877-669-9749

Linksys Wireless-N Gigabit Router

Linksys announced its first gigabit wireless-N router, the Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link. When teamed with the Linksys Wireless-N Notebook Adapter or Wireless-N Desktop Adapter, the Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link can provide as much as four times the range and twelve times the throughput of standard Wireless-G solutions. You can turn any USB 2.0 storage device into network-attached storage by plugging the device into the Linksys Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link. You can then share the contents of the drive with everyone on the network. The Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link also supports VPN pass-through and can serve as a DHCP server and a wireless Access Point (AP). www.linksys.com, 800-546-5797

Secure Access to Wireless Networks with Biometric Fingerprint Verification

Shimon Systems announced the Bio-NetGuard Wi-Fi security solution, which uses biometric fingerprint-verification technology to authenticate users of wireless networks. Bio-NetGuard is a plug-and-play device that can connect to a Wi-Fi Access Point (AP) or LAN router and supports most 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g wireless networks. Bio-NetGuard also supports the nextgeneration Wi-Fi security standards, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2). Bio-NetGuard can secure multiple Wi-Fi APs connected to the same router, which lets authenticated users easily roam between APs without having to reauthenticate. Bio-NetGuard is available in a fingerprint-only version or a two-factor fingerprint-and-password authentication version. www.shimonsystems.com, 408-546-2140

Migrate Exchange Public Folders to SharePoint

Quest Software announced Quest Public Folder Migrator for SharePoint, software that migrates Microsoft Exchange public folder data to Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Public Folder Migrator manages the migration process with one console and lets you configure multiple migration jobs, automate bulk migrations, and synchronize data changes with migrated public folder data and permissions. You can download a free trial of Public Folder Migrator from Quest's Web site. www.quest.com, 949-754-8000