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Server virtualisation gives birth to specialist BC and DR solutions
As companies head down the server virtualisation path, they quickly come to understand that the virtualisation process needs to embrace storage complimentary DR and BC technologies if the true benefits and efficiencies of this new IT world order are to be realised. SNS Europe talks to VirtualSharp’s CEO Carlos Escapa and Gurdip Kalley, Head of Business Development at S3.
SNS: Please can you provide some background on VirtualSharp – when was it formed and with what objectives?
CE: VirtualSharp tracks its origins to early 2008. Its core product (ReliableDR) was designed by field engineers of VMware’s top integrator in Spain, Ermestel, in response to customer requirements to automate DR testing in virtual datacentres. Version 1.0 of the product was released in Q4 2008 and the first customer was Santalucia Insurance. Following ReliableDR’s commercial success, VirtualSharp Software was created and spun off Ermestel in Q2 2010 as an ISV, and the UK launch took place late in Q3.
VirtualSharp transforms the way that DR is managed in virtual datacenters and clouds, to automate end-to-end the DR test and recovery processes, and to demonstrate compliance with statutory, legal, and/or corporate Business Continuity requirements.
SNS: What are the different demands of data backup and recovery in the virtual world as opposed to the physical world? CE: The flexibility of virtual
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infrastructures presents new opportunities to strengthen DR processes that cannot be envisaged under legacy backup and recovery tools designed for physical infrastructures. Virtualisation and intelligent storage enable the complete automation of DR testing so that RPOs (recovery point objectives) can be enforced simply as a parameter associated with an IT service, and its recovery time can be measured with precision, also allowing the automated enforcement of the RTO (recovery time objective).
SNS: Will physical BC/DR solutions manage to evolve to keep up with the virtual world, or will they need to go back to the drawing board?
CE: Physical systems will not disappear overnight and legacy solutions may well continue to play a more specialised role, for instance to recover user files or to manage long term data archival. As the percentage of IT services delivered through Virtual Machines (VMs) increases, IT departments will derive more value from the new generation of DR orchestration solutions because DR processes will be inherently more precise and reliable.
SNS: A virtual BC/DR solution designed from the ground up sounds like a neat idea – but how does it sit alongside a customer’s existing BC/DR software solution?
CE: They can be run in parallel as long as the customers wish to do so. Legacy BC/DR processes are run on production sites during backup windows.
VirtualSharp’s solution has zero footprint on production and operates exclusively in the secondary site, relying on replication at the storage level and the hypervisor to orchestrate DR processes independently of what customers run on the primary site.
It works with the customer’s existing technologies and forms a new DR management layer that does not disrupt legacy processes.
Furthermore, some customers of VirtualSharp are now migrating legacy processes to secondary sites, applying them after the recovery of IT services has been assured.
SNS: In an ideal world, would one BC/DR software suite offer an integrated approach to data
CARLOS ESCAPA GURDIP KALLEY
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