Open-E announced that Open-E Data Storage Server (DSS) has been certified for use with Virtual Iron's server virtualization software. Environments deploying both Virtual Iron and Open-E Data Storage Server (DSS) will benefit from streamlined virtual infrastructure, improved server and storage utilization and robust business continuity.

"The server virtualization market is red hot and gaining rapid adoption as organizations strive to achieve physical server consolidation, maximize resource utilization and deploy disaster recovery solutions," said Mark Bowker, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. "In a recent survey of current and planned virtualization users, ESG discovered the importance of networked storage as 86 percent of the respondents that have implemented server virtualization use some form of networked storage to support their infrastructure requirements. The combination of capabilities from Virtual Iron and Open-E will help customers streamline virtual infrastructure deployments, improve overall resource utilization and implement robust business continuity solutions."

Virtual Iron provides server virtualization capabilities on a next-generation architecture. The platform combines an open source hypervisor with advanced virtualization services and policy-based automation capabilities such as LiveMigrate for easy movement of workloads, LiveRecovery for automated virtual machine failover, LiveCapacity for dynamic workload balancing, and LiveSnapshot for hot backup and patch management. These capabilities enable offloaded, space efficient and no-downtime backups on live virtual machines running in production environments. Virtual Iron also takes full advantage of the latest hardware virtualization extensions from Intel and AMD to deliver near native performance.

Smooth integration of Open-E DSS with Virtual Iron provides storage consolidation that supports capital and operational cost reduction throughout the IT environment. DSS brings enterprise-class functionality, enhanced manageability and proven reliability to small and medium businesses that depend on server/storage infrastructure for continued business operations. As a result, companies have a cost-effective avenue toward advanced IT to strengthen their competitive advantage.

"SMBs are increasingly realizing the advantages of virtualizing their server environments in an effort to consolidate and become more efficient. This in turn is driving demand for more flexible storage solutions that interoperate and add value," said Krzysztof Franek, CEO of Open-E. "The combination of Virtual Iron and Open-E addresses complexity, cost and installation difficulty head-on to deliver efficient and productive server-storage capabilities in support of the bottom line."