IdealStor Backs Up VMware

GAITHERSBURG, Md. -- Idealstor, a leading manufacturer of removable disk-to-disk backup solutions, announced today the release of an enterprise backup solution for VMware virtual servers. iBac Virtual Infrastructure Proxy (iBac VIP) is designed to offer an easy to use and affordable solution for backing up data in a VMware virtual server environment.

iBac VIP is not simply a modification of iBac Data Protection Software, Idealstors backup solution that has been on the market since 2005. iBac VIP was written from the ground up with VMware backup in mind and is designed specifically for VMware virtual machines running in an ESX server environment. VIP is licensed per ESX server regardless of the number of virtual machines or processors running on the ESX server. This enables companies to quickly add new VMs without having to worry about purchasing additional backup agents for each virtual server.

iBac VIP ties into the VCB framework provided by VMware. Because of this, the load from running backups is removed from the ESX server and offloaded to a dedicated 2003 backup server. This ensures that backups will not put a large load on the ESX server which can affect the performance of virtual machines. VIP can backup data residing on a fibre channel or iSCSI SAN or can backup data directly from the ESX server over the LAN. VIP offers a simple user interface that provides scheduling, logging email reporting and the ability to backup multiple ESX servers on the LAN or in remote data centers.

Because iBac VIP is designed to run on a Windows 2003 Server, VIP can be tightly integrated into Idealstor’s range of removable disk backup solutions. This enables VIP jobs to be sent straight to the Idealstor removable drive bays which can then be sent offsite in place of tape for offsite storage and disaster recovery. While it is not required to use Idealstor equipment as the VIP proxy server, the Idealstor Backup Appliance comes pre-loaded with Windows 2003 Server enabling this one solution to eliminate the need of having to use a separate server, tape library and backup software to backup VMware virtual machines.

“We released iBac in 2005 with the goal of offering an easy to use yet robust backup application for Windows servers”, said Nandan Arora, chief technical officer at Idealstor. “Over the years our clients have increasingly migrated to VMware and reached out to us to help them with their virtual server backups. Rather than simply modifying our existing software for use with VMware like most software companies have done, we developed VIP from the ground up with the unique requirements of VMware in mind. Because VIP is licensed per ESX server, licensing is less complicated and is far more affordable than having to purchase expensive and resource consuming backup agents for each VM.”Idealstor LLC