Virtual Iron Gets a Refresh
Virtual Iron has released a point upgrade of its virtualization software,
Virtual Iron 4.3. The big news in this upgrade is support for Windows Server 2008, Microsoft's newest server OS. Another cool feature is the ability to LiveUpgrade. Virtual Iron says this means that you can upgrade from 4.2 with no VM downtime (just remember to make snapshots!)
Virtual Iron is a very interesting company, almost uniquely situated in the virtualization space. It offers mature, strong management tools on top of its Xen hypervisor, and several analysts I've spoken with like its products very much. Virtual Iron goes hard after SMB customers, which it sees as its niche currently. That doesn't mean it can't be used in enterprises, but it markets itself and its products as a good fit for smaller virtual deployments.
It's also been around awhile, as you can see from the version numbers. The company is growing steadily, and definitely encroaches on VMware's territory. Virtual Iron is often not mentioned in discussions of hypervisors and management tools, where most of the press is hogged by VMware, Microsoft and Citrix.
Don't let that fool you, though; this isn't a here-today-gone-tomorrow operation. The company does fly somewhat under the radar, but is a worthy competitor in the field. If you're in the planning stages of your virtualization efforts, you would do well to put them on your list of companies to evaluate (full disclosure -- I have no financial or other relationship with Virtual Iron, other than covering the company as a journalist.)
Are you using or considering Virtual Iron? If so, let me know.
Posted by Keith Ward on 04/24/2008 at 12:48 PM