Highlander Direct - Sales Division

"Virtualisation with VMware is more than just a cost saving exercise. To simplify the management and access to business critical resources whilst improving efficiency and reducing the impact on the environment is a very powerful message."
Darren Easthope, VMware Specialist, Highlander Computing Solutions

VMware virtualisation technology gives you the power to eliminate server sprawl by converting your physical machines into fully functionial virtual machines. VMware virtual machines run independantly from the underlying hardware and are supported on a broad array of physical servers, from 2-CPU to 32-CPU systems.

Each VMware virtual machine represents a complete system, with processors, memory, networking, storage and BIOS, enabling you to run Windows, Linux, Solaris and NetWare operating systems and software applications on the same piece of hardware at the same time.

By running multiple workloads on highly configured x86 servers, your I.T organisation can increase the utilisation of your server hardware from 10-15% to as much as 80%.

VMware Infrastructure 3 is a feature-rich suite that delivers the production-proven efficiency, availability and dynamic management needed to create a responsive data centre.

VMware infrastructure 3

VMware VMotion technology, unique to VMware, leverages the complete virtualisation of servers, storage and networking to move an entire running virtual machine instantaneously from one server to another. The entire state of a virtual machine is encapsulated by a set of files stored on shared storage, and VMware's VMFS cluster file system allows both the source and the target VMware ESX server to access these virtual machine files concurrently.

VMware Storage VMotion is a state-of-the-art solution that enables you to perform live migration of virtual machine disk files across heterogeneous storage arrays with complete transaction integrity and no interruption in service for critical applications.

VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). VMware DRS continuously monitors utilisation across resource pools and intelligently allocates available resources among the virtual machines based on pre-defined rules that reflect business needs and changing priorities. When virtual machine resources are constrained, additional capacity is made available by migrating live virtual machines to a different physical server using VMware VMotion.

VMware Infrastructure VMware High Availability

VMware HA monitors and detects virtual machines for "guest OS" failures and automatically starts virtual machines after user-specified intervals and detects server failures automatically using a "heartbeat" on servers. HA also restarts virtual machines almost instantly without human intervention on a different physical server within the same resource pool and continuously monitors and chooses the optional physical servers within a resource pool on which to restart virtual machines (if used in conjunction with VMware DRS).

With VMware Update Manager, you can automate patch management and eliminate manual tracking and patching of VMware ESX hosts and virtual machines. VMware Update Manager scans the state of the physical VMware ESX hosts, as well as select guest operating systems, compares them with baselines set by the administrator and then applies updates and patches to enforce compliance to mandated patch standards. This capability dramatically simplifies the patch management process while helping you protect your data center against bugs and security vulnerabilities.

VMware Infrastructure Consolidated Backup

Perform virtual machine backup at any time. VMware Consolidated Backup provides a centralised backup facility that leverages a centralised proxy server and reduces the load on production VMware ESX hosts.

Achieve the highest levels of efficiency, automation, simplicity and security in managing a virtualized I.T environment of any size with VMware VirtualCenter. VirtualCenter lets you rapidly provision virtual machines and monitor performance of physical servers and virtual machines. VirtualCenter intelligently optimises resources, ensures high availability to all applications in virtual machines and makes your I.T environment more responsive with virtualisation-based distributed services such as VMware DRS, VMware High Availability (HA) and VMware VMotion.

VMware Site Recovery Manager makes disaster recovery rapid, reliable and manageable so that you can meet recovery objectives. By eliminating complex manual recovery steps and enabling non-disruptive testing of recovery plans, Site Recovery Manager removes the risk and worry from disaster recovery, helping you protect all of your important systems and applications.

Using Site Recovery Manager

Meet recovery time and recovery point objectives as well as compliance requirements with an automated, reliable and easy to manage disaster recovery solution. With Site Recovery Manager you can:

Manage Disaster Recovery Plans
Create, update and document recovery plans as an integrated part of managing your VMware virtual environment. Site Recovery Manager integrates closely with VMware Infrastructure and VMware Virtual Centre so that you can easily create and manage the processes and resources involved in disaster recovery for your virtual infrastructure.

Perform Non-Disruptive Tests of Recovery Plans
Execute automated tests of recovery plans without disrupting your IT environment. Site Recovery Manager makes it easy to create an isolated testing environment and automate testing of the recovery plan that would be used in an actual failover.

Automate Failover and Recovery
Automate execution of recovery plans to eliminate slow, unreliable manual processes. Automated recovery ensures that the recovery process is executed consistently and as intended.

Deliver desktops from the data centre with VMware VDI

Tighten control of corporate assets and simplify desktop management with VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). This comprehensive desktop virtualisation solution lets you replace traditional PCs with virtual machines that you can manage from the data center in order to:

Extend VI3 capabilities such as business continuity & disaster recovery to your desktops.
Streamline desktop management to reduce operating costs and increase control.
Deliver complete desktop environments with greater application compatibility.

End-to-end Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Functionality

Central administration of desktops from any location: Manage virtual desktops in a data center where you can more easily perform upgrades, patches and desktop maintenance.
Scalable management: Store and manage thousands of virtual desktops on hundreds of physical servers from a single management console.
Streamlined provisioning: Deploy new desktops in minutes instead of days or weeks using automatic desktop provisioning.
Desktop isolation: Give each end user an isolated virtual desktop and help to eliminate the availability and performance problems associated with shared application technologies.

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