Double-Take Releases Network Boot Technology and Software-Based iSCSI SAN

Double-Take Software announced the release of its netBoot/i and sanFly. Together, they can provide a centralized means of booting and managing servers and desktops from iSCSI storage area networks (SANs). These products give IT administrators the flexibility to streamline workload management across both physical and virtual environments, and the cost efficiency of ‘greener IT’ through reduced power consumption and energy costs. Double-Take for Windows, the company’s flagship product, is known for its non-disruptive, affordable, hardware agnostic solutions. The addition of these new product offerings combined with existing capabilities such as continuous full server wide area replication build upon Double-Take Software’s objective to be the leader in Dynamic Infrastructure; that is, to move workloads, for whatever purpose, whenever needed, affordably and non-disruptively.

"For years, many organizations have come to rely on Double-Take Software for replication, failover and recovery," said Lauren Whitehouse, analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. "The addition of netBoot/i and sanFly not only positions Double-Take Software’s entrance into a new market, but enhances its current offerings by providing additional flexibility to companies looking to create a more dynamic IT infrastructure."

NetBoot/i is a software-based solution for booting systems from industry-standard iSCSI storage using ‘off-the-shelf’ networking hardware found in most organizations’ server or desktop systems. IT administrators today are often faced with the expense and labor-intensive effort of deploying IT workloads. Once deployed, these same workloads are difficult to move between different servers or desktops because they are tied directly to the servers they run on. With netBoot/i, administrators can use a centralized workload management console to assign workloads, including their boot images, to any available physical or virtual machine in the environment regardless of hardware configuration. Additionally, by enabling diskless servers or desktops, netBoot/i reduces power consumption by minimizing cooling, maximizing cabinet and server rack efficiency.

SanFly is a software-based iSCSI target that turns any Windows server into an iSCSI SAN. With sanFly, setting up iSCSI storage for use by server or desktop systems is as easy as five clicks. SanFly also provides a "shared mode" for iSCSI storage it manages, allowing multiple servers or workstations to access the same shared volume on the storage network. This latest release of the sanFly provides the following new features:

• Use sanFly iSCSI storage with Microsoft Failover Clustering
• Support for storing data in the VHD virtual disk format – supported by Microsoft and used by its new Hyper-V product

"Double-Take Software is known for its non-disruptive, affordable software solutions," said Bob Roudebush, director of solutions engineering for Double-Take Software. "With the addition of netBoot/i and sanFly organizations are now able to more rapidly launch and provision virtual and physical servers and desktops for recovery, migration, back-up or any other purpose, using a combination of either traditional host-based technologies or these new iSCSI storage–based products."

"Our company’s top priority is delivering IT services in a flexible and agile fashion, whether it’s shifting services from one site to another, from one computer to another, or even from one computer to a virtual machine," said J. Wolfgang Goerlich, network operations and security manager, Munder Capital Management. "Double-Take Software’s netBoot/i plays an important role in achieving this vision by enabling us to seamlessly move servers between iSCSI and FC, lower and higher capacity hardware, and between physical and virtual machines; the result is a smooth transition between various equipment tiers."

Double-Take Software acquired netBoot/i and sanFly in the recent purchase of Toronto-based emBoot.