PHD Virtual Acquires VirtualSharp Software

PHD Virtual Technologies, Inc., in virtual machine backup and recovery, and virtualization monitoring solutions, has acquired privately-held VirtualSharp Software Corp., a McLean, Virginia-based provider of automated DR assurance solutions for virtualized environments and private and public clouds.

With the acquisition of VirtualSharp, PHD Virtual delivers transformational technology for virtual backup and DR assurance providing an affordable solutions for data protection and BC, automatically certifying achievement of RTOs and RPOs.

In today’s compliance-focused world, organizations are demanding more frequent verification that their DR processes actually work. VirtualSharp has pioneered the concept of Disaster Recovery Assurance in order to address this problem. It leverages the synergies between the virtualization and storage layers, which allow DR to be orchestrated and automated across data centers. Recovery tests can be executed without human intervention and without impacting production systems. Disaster Recovery Assurance enables the automated enforcement of RPOs (maximum data loss) and the continuous measurement and compliance of RTOs (maximum outage time).

"PHD has experienced unprecedented demand for our virtual backup products with eleven consecutive record quarters in a row," said James Legg, president and CEO, PHD Virtual. "With the addition of VirtualSharp to our portfolio we enhance our position in the DR market as the value leader, as well as extend our ability to effectively serve our customers who must cost-effectively certify that their disaster recovery processes work and achieve regulatory compliance."

"Just like backup alone is worthless without the ability to recover data, DR implementations are marginalized without the ability to guarantee, or assure, that DR will take place successfully when needed," said Dave Simpson, senior storage analyst with The 451 Group. "Combining PHD Virtual’s backup, recovery and replication with VirtualSharp’s disaster recovery assurance ensure end-to-end data protection and compliance at significantly lower cost than existing approaches."

Like PHD, VirtualSharp has also received accolades for its assertive growth and was recently named one of the Top 10 Fastest Growing Storage Start-Ups in 2012 by StorageNewsletter.

"We are thrilled to have VirtualSharp become part of PHD Virtual because the worlds of virtual backup and disaster recovery are merging and the combination of the two companies is a game-changer," said Carlos Escapa, CEO and co-founder of VirtualSharp. "Our product portfolio becomes the one-stop shop with a solution spanning backup, replication, disaster recovery testing and compliance assurance.PHD Virtual also provides us with the marketing and sales resources we need to exponentially grow our combined solutions on a global scale."

About VirtualSharp’s Product Portfolio
The cost and complexity of virtual backup and virtual DR management continues to increase as the number of virtual machines in production continues to grow. VirtualSharp’s ReliableDR is a solution that orchestrates DR testing, failover, and failback for VMware virtual environments and private clouds.

It offers capabilities, which constitute its ability
to cost-effectively deliver Disaster Recovery Assurance:

• Service-Oriented, Fully Automated RTO and RPO Compliance Measurement: ReliableDR allows a user to specify the RTO and RPO of all necessary components of a business service, then automates the granular testing of each component in ways that measure and report the service’s compliance with those objectives.
• Application Aware Testing: The testing processes used above go well beyond simple booting of VMs. ReliableDR granularly tests the application components themselves to ensure that the components are functioning as a whole and the service they comprise is truly workable and operationally available to support the business. It then stores each successfully tested job as a Certified Recovery Point (CRP) for an end user to failover to in case of a service outage.
• Replication Flexibility: ReliableDR can integrate with all of the popular storage replication solutions, as well as offer its own host-based software replication, providing application protection capabilities in a flexible manner. Examples of key storage vendors supported are EMC, NetApp, Dell, HP, IBM, Oracle, Datacore, Nimble, and FalconStor.
• Multi-tenancy: ReliableDR has built-in, granular user based access in order to provide strict multi-tenancy for large environments and cloud providers, as well as Role-Based Access Control to securely facilitate the use of ReliableDR to all BC/DR stakeholders across the organization, from DR planners to external auditors.

"Our combined company goal is to provide the best value in virtual backup and disaster recovery assurance. We will be the leader by supporting all major virtual hypervisors and by catering to public and private clouds in the areas of backup, replication, and automated recovery, providing continuous proof that systems are recoverable and RTOs are achievable," continued Legg. "We’re focusing on problems in today’s virtual environment that force users to undertake complex, time consuming, manual processes, and deliver unprecedented value significantly more affordable than competitive alternatives."

Read also:
Start-Up’s Profile: VirtualSharp Software
Spanish firm in DR reliability for VMware