Virtual Iron Customer Profile: Goodell DeVries Leech & Dann, LLP
I had the chance to speak with Goodell DeVries Leech & Dann's David Roden, a few questions about their use of Virtual Iron's virtual server environment. Thanks for spending time with me, David! Here are my questions and David's answers:
Who are you and what does your company do?
David Roden, Director of Technology for Goodell DeVries Leech & Dann, LLP, a law firm in Baltimore.
What were you doing that needed this technology?
We were looking for ways to improve business continuity (BC) / disaster recovery (DR) capabilities. Server virtualization enhances our ability to move & recover servers in a BC / DR scenario. It also saves hardware acquisition and maintenance costs.
What other products did you evaluate before selecting this technology?
VMWare server, VMWare ESX, XenServer.
Why did you select this technology over the other alternatives?
Virtual Iron offers the most compelling set of features for the price, (Virtual Storage Management, LiveMaintenance, LiveRecovery) and easiest to implement.
What benefits has your organization received through the use of this technology?
Improved BC / DR capability, easier server deployment, reduced hardware costs.
What advice would you offer others in a similar situation?
Following the herd to VMWare may work, but it will be costly and complex. Virtual Iron provides substantially similar capability (and getting better all the time) for a fraction of the cost, and it can be installed and maintained by mere mortals. Virtual Iron is as close to Plug & Play as it gets for Server virtualization.
A bit about Virtual Iron
Virtual Iron offers management software for virtual resources combined with the Xen hypervisor. The company would say that they provide "true server virtualization including intelligent virtual machine mobility, high availability, rapid recovery and performance load balancing." They would also point out that "the Virtual Iron Web-based console is easy to deploy, use and manage."Snapshot Analysis
Virtual Iron is one of a number of companies that are building products that include the open source Xen hypervior. That community is comprised of many suppliers including Citrix, Red Hat, Novell/SUSE, Oracle, Sun and all Linux distributions. These companies help push the Xen technology along and also compete with one another from time to time.I've written about Virtual Iron several times here on Virtually Speaking including the following: Virtual Iron Update, Virtual Iron offers “Once and Done” virtual server environment, Hobson’s EMT saves time and money with Virtual Iron and several others.
I've spoken with a number of Virtual Iron customers and all of them seem impressed with the performance, the ease of use, the integration of the Virtual Iron solution and the professionalism and responsiveness of the company. If your organization is considering different approaches to server virtualization, automation and orchestration, it would be wise to learn more about Virtual Iron.