Quest Software recently announced vRanger Pro 5.2 . So apart from the usual load of marketing gumpf what exciting new features and improvements have Quest included in vRanger 5.2?
- Virtual Appliance (VA) for ESXi Replication - The VA has been updated in vRanger 5.2 to ensure ESXi Replication is supported now ESX is dead. The VA provides a flexible and cost effective replicated DR capability as well as Linux FLR support.
- Hot Add Backup Mode - Allows you to pro-actively make network backups of ESXi in under 5 minutes.
- vCenter-only credential option - In order to provide compatibility with ESXi in lock-down mode vRanger 5.2 introduces the ability to backup ESXi with only vCenter credentials (Replication still requires authentication at host level via host credentials or VA credentials)
- vSphere 5 Compatible - vSphere 5/ ESXi support officially announced.
- Integration with Quest Recovery Manager for Active Directory, MS Exchange & MS SharePoint
- Licensing Changes - New license keys deployed that differ from previous vRanger versions.
- Support Portal Changes - Vizioncore URLs finally being retired and all support requests must be logged via Quest SupportLink.
So as you can see the majority of new features surround making vRanger Pro fully compatible with ESXi due to the death of ESX. Over 38,000 companies are currently using vRanger to protect critical virtualized applications across the globe, having used vRanger for the past 3 years to successfully recover customer data at multiple DR tests I can safely say it does exactly what it says on the tin. My 1 concern with the backup module is the double-hop backup and restore process whereas in TSM for Virtual Environments you can backup and restore directly into TSM saving having to have huge amounts of storage on your backup proxy server.
For anyone interested in checking vRanger out and downloading a trial go to the Quest site
Thanks for the post --- I understand the double-hop backup concern which is an issue with all D2D only products. We are about to launch vRanger 5.3 (beta out soon) that allows vRanger to backup to NetVault SmartDisk (an acquisition Quest did earlier this year) to de-dup the vRanger backups. Next year, we will have new releases of SmartDisk that allow for movement to tape along with any-2-many replication of the vRanger de-duped backup for customers who implement NetVault SmartDisk as their backup target.
ReplyDeleteNo problem John. Thanks for the information regarding the new features within future releases of vRanger & NetVault SmartDisk. Very excited to hear about the enhancement to utilise NetVault SmartDisk to potentially backup VMs via vRanger directly to tape. Drop me a mail via wbush@virtualvizion.com when the 5.3 Beta is released I will be more than happy to complete some testing and provide feedback for you.
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