NetEx Addition Of Hyper-V Support A Game-Changer

If good things are worth waiting for, then the addition of Microsoft Hyper-V support to the NetEx (Network Executive Software) HyperIP WAN optimization virtual appliance solution will be greeted with open arms by customers using the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 platform. Originally expected to ship last year, shortly after the company unveiled the appliance supporting the VMWare ESX hypervisor, it is now a part of HyperIP Version 6.0. The company also plans to support the Citrix Xen hypervisor in a future release.

In addition to the existing support for Hyper-V optimization management tools and applications, including Live Migration, the new release provides an interoperable WAN optimization virtual appliance across Hyper-V and VMware environments, says NetEx. It adds that users can accelerate more than 40 of the top disaster recovery, replication and virtual machine migration applications at up to 1 Gbps or more using HyperIP for VMware at one end of the WAN and HyperIP for Hyper-V at the other.

Infonetics Research calls the WAN optimization market a three-horse race among Blue Coat, Cisco and Riverbed. In Gartner's December 2010 report, "Market Share: Application Acceleration Equipment, Worldwide, 3Q10," Riverbed was called the WOC (WAN optimization controller) Advanced Platform (AP) market share leader with 43.1%.

NetEx believes it has a number of advantages over its competitors, ranging from a software-only solution that doesn't require a forklift upgrade, to offering a free 30-day trial, to enabling significantly better performance.

The company says its technology accelerates data replication and file transfers by aggregating multiple applications over a shared connection and mitigating network conditions that lead to poor application performance and throughput. The new release supports hyperthreading technology for hypervisors and produces "market-leading WAN optimization data rates" of up to 1 Gbps, and, with dedicated resources, HyperIP can sustain network interface data rates in excess of 1 Gbps.

"This is a game changer,” says Dragon Slayer Consulting's Marc Staimer. The vast majority of remote offices tend to not be VMware. They tend to be HyperV, and this is an easy fix for all the issues people have with remote offices, file transfers and backup. No hardware is required, and it's inexpensive, he adds.

"I'm a big fan of their stuff. They're an engineering company, operating on a shoestring ... yet they build a good product. And very reasonable license costs, too." Staimer says the solution works, it's inexpensive, and it plays on VMware and Hyper-V, the two most popular hypervisor platforms. And while he likes both Silver Peak and Riverbed's solutions, he says you pay a premium for what they offer.

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