Arkeia vStorage Virtual Appliance ($1,500 per VMware Hypervisor)

Arkeia Software delivered the Arkeia vStorage Virtual Appliance which packages the Arkeia vStorage Backup Agent as a virtual appliance. The appliance can be deployed on any vSphere hypervisor and used to backup other virtual machines on that hypervisor or other vSphere hypervisors.

The Arkeia vStorage Virtual Appliance bundles the Arkeia Backup Agent for vStorage to offer comprehensive support for VMware vSphere 4  – any combination of vCenter, ESX, and ESXi – as well as VMware Infrastructure 3. Like all Arkeia backup agents, Arkeia’s vStorage Backup Agent permits backups to disk, to tape, and to disk and then to tape (D2D2T). Backup data sets can be replicated locally, and over a WAN.

"Virtual appliances allow services to be more easily deployed and provide greater flexibility as the use of those services evolves," said George Crump, Lead Analyst at Storage Switzerland. "Backup is a natural use case for virtual appliances, because backup servers don’t maintain peak load 24 hours per day, so it makes sense that Arkeia was one of the first companies to deliver a backup server as a virtual appliance. Arkeia’s extension of that innovation – to deliver a vStorage Backup Agent as a Virtual Appliance – makes even more sense."

"The Arkeia vStorage Virtual Appliance leverages the benefits of virtualization for backup," explains Fred Renard, VP of marketing of Arkeia Software. "Now, sites can deploy the Arkeia Backup Agent for vStorage in less than 5 minutes. Rather than prepare an operating environment before installing the Arkeia Backup Agent for vStorage, the two are bundled in an optimized virtual appliance that includes the VMware VDDK libraries. This new virtual appliance is the latest of a long series of innovations by Arkeia to protect VMware environments."

Arkeia vStorage Virtual Appliance Details
Arkeia’s vStorage Virtual Appliance offers backup and recovery support for VMware vSphere 4 platforms, including vCenter, ESX, and ESXi. The appliance is compatible with any Arkeia Backup Server v8.2.10 or later.

Capabilities, all managed
through Arkeia’s Web user interface, include:

• Block-grain incremental image-level backups using VMware Changed Block Tracking (CBT) for reduced storage needs and faster backups due to reduced network traffic
• vCenter integration for simplified management of backup and recovery operations for environments with multiple physical hosts
• vApp support to backup and restore groups of VMs working together, as well as granular restore on a per-VM basis
• Multiple transport methods allowing the Arkeia Agent to perform LAN-free backups via SCSI hot-add or over the virtual LAN for accelerated performance
• Raw Device Mapping (RDM) support for backups of remote block storage devices, including incremental backups using CBT when in virtual compatibility mode
• Differential backups, as well as full and incremental backups, for the flexibility to define an efficient backup process
• Flexible restores including hypervisor redirection, as well as options to choose datacenter/folder, cluster/host, resource pool, or datastore destinations to simplify the restore process
• File-grain restores from image backups (for delivery as a free upgrade in January, 2011)

Availability and Pricing
The Arkeia vStorage Virtual Appliance is available for download. Pricing, at $1,500 per VMware hypervisor, is the same as for Arkeia’s vStorage Backup Agent which is available for a variety of Linux and Windows platforms.

As a special offer through December 31, 2010, a 3-hypervisor license is priced at $3,000, a 12-hypervisor license at $9,000, and a vStorage agent license with an unlimited number of hypervisors at $18,000.

All products include one year of maintenance for free license updates/upgrades as well as access to Arkeia technical support.