14 DAY TRIAL // The new version of Citrix’s virtualization management solution for Microsoft’s hypervisor is designed to streamline the adoption of site recovery for virtual environments. The promise is that Citrix Essentials 5.5 for Hyper-V will not only simplify deployment, but also reduce complexity and the costs of implementation and management associated with the business continuity solution. Citrix Essentials 5.5 for Hyper-V is already available in an Express edition, but also an integral part of a full-featured Platinum SKU.
“Customers are looking for a reliable, rapid site recovery strategy that isn’t time-consuming to implement and expensive to manage,” said Garth Fort, general manager of System Center marketing, Server and Tools Business at Microsoft.
Citrix’s position is that its disaster recovery solution is just what customers that have embraced virtualization and Hyper-V in their environments need. Citrix Essentials 5.5 for Hyper-V is designed especially for companies that are relying heavily on virtualized environments in their datacenters for running mission-critical applications. In this regard, Citrix Essentials 5.5 for Hyper-V brings to the table the StorageLink Site Recovery technology. Citrix notes that customers will be able to leverage StorageLink Site Recovery on top of the virtualization management capabilities of Hyper-V and System Center.
“We’re working with Citrix to deliver a configurable and integrated solution that removes the complexity associated with competitive solutions. With its new site recovery technology, Citrix Essentials for Microsoft Hyper-V gives customers an easy way to improve disaster recovery and bullet proof application and data availability,” Fort added.
Citrix Essentials 5.5 for Microsoft Hyper-V Express edition is already available for download at no charge. On top of the free edition of Citrix Essentials 5.5 for Microsoft Hyper-V, the company is offering the Enterprise edition at $1,500 per physical server and the Platinum edition for $3,000 per physical server. StorageLink Site Recovery is offered with Citrix Essentials 5.5 for Microsoft Hyper-V Platinum edition, but an express StorageLink Site Recovery SKU will be available with Citrix Essentials 5.5 for Microsoft Hyper-V Express edition on December 23, 2009.
“It is difficult to align systems, networking and storage teams for disaster recovery planning and implementation. Then in the event of a disaster the same teams have to coordinate recovery. Disaster recovery can be an insurmountable task for organizations lacking either budget or expertise. The Citrix-Microsoft solution solves these challenges,” added Barry Barnett, senior systems engineer at OSIsoft, a leading provider of highly-scalable and secure infrastructure for the management of real-time data and events.
Citrix Essentials 5.5 for Hyper-V is available for download here.