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VMware Bringing Service Level Monitoring and High Availability to Virtualization Management with VMware vCenter™ Server Heartbeat

VMware Bringing Service Level Monitoring and High Availability to Virtualization Management with VMware vCenter™ Server Heartbeat

VMware vCenter™ Server Heartbeat Protects VMware vCenter Server Against a Broad Range of Downtime Risks

CANNES, France, February 24, 2009 –Today at VMworld Europe 2009, VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, announced vCenter Server Heartbeat, a new product that monitors and manages the automatic failover of VMware vCenter Server. VMware vCenter Server is the industry-leading virtualization management product used by more than 130,000 customers around the world to centrally manage, control and automate the virtual datacenter. VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat, licensed from VMware partner Neverfail, protects the VMware vCenter Server against a broad range of downtime risks by replicating the server configuration and data to a passive standby server.

With more customers than ever running business critical applications on VMware Infrastructure to gain the benefits of virtualization – flexibility, cost-efficiency, and reliability– the resilience of application and infrastructure management is critical. Now VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat monitors the vCenter Server connectivity and components, including the license server and VMware vCenter Update Manager, and can restart the entire vCenter Server on the passive server. This can help ensure a consistent, reliable operation of VMware vCenter Server if it is threatened by unplanned or planned downtime, and it provides a broad range of protection against operator errors, operating system or hardware failure, or external events.

"Neverfail's proven technology is deployed globally by large enterprises to protect business-critical applications, including Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server and Blackberry Enterprise Server,” said Nick Harmer, vice president of strategic alliances for Neverfail. “The same level of protection will be available for vCenter Server with VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat. Neverfail is excited to provide its leading application availability solution to power VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat as part of VMware's product portfolio."

"Ninety-four percent of surveyed VMware customers report that they run applications in production on the VMware platform, so now more than ever, customers require resiliency for their virtualization management infrastructure,” said Raghu Raghuram, vice president, server business unit, VMware. “VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat provides proactive protection against downtime for VMware vCenter Server, protecting customers' investment in their VMware Infrastructures and ensuring that key capabilities like VMware vMotion™ and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) are continuously available. We selected Neverfail to provide this technology because it offers industry-leading protection for the VMware vCenter Server platform, and has proven its technology supporting other enterprise applications."

“A resilient management infrastructure is critical in a production virtualization deployment,” said Roy Illsley, senior research analyst, Butler Group. “As part of that, deep awareness and monitoring of the management server will give administrators additional peace-of-mind, knowing that their virtualization management platform can recover quickly from almost any failure.”

VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat provides:

  • Continuous monitoring and awareness of the VMware vCenter Server, database and all service components
  • Replication and failover of VMware vCenter Server across a Local Area Network (LAN) to another server in the datacenter, or across a Wide Area Network (WAN) to a remote datacenter
  • Minimal performance impact on the overall virtual infrastructure
  • Hardware agnostic replication and failover

VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat will be available in March for $9,995 per protected VMware vCenter Server instance if purchased separately from the VMware vCenter Server license, or for $12,995 when bundled with a VMware vCenter Server license. For more information on VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat, visit www.vmware.com/go/heartbeat. For more information on the VMware vCenter family of products, visit: www.vmware.com/products/vi/vc/. All prices are list prices from VMware.

About VMware

VMware (NYSE: VMW) is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter. Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2008 revenues of $1.9 billion  , more than 130,000 customers and more than 22,000 partners, VMware is one of the fastest growing public software companies. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is majority-owned by EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC). For more information, visit www.vmware.com.

VMware, VMworld, VMware vCenter and vMotion are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Contacts:
Melinda Marks
VMware Public Relations
mmarks@vmware.com
+1 (650) 743-4614

Chris Norris
Fleishman Hillard for VMware
Chris.Norris@fleishman.com
+1 (415) 318-4078

Alicia Aldini
AxiCom for VMware
alicia.aldini@axicom.com
+44 (0)20 8392 4065

Forward-Looking Statements

All information in this disclosure regarding future directions and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision of VMware's products. The information in this disclosure is not a legal obligation for VMware to deliver any material, code, or functionality. The release and timing of VMware's products remains at VMware's sole discretion.

Statements made in this press release which are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements and are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements relate, but are not limited, to ongoing development and delivery of innovative new products. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) current uncertainty in global economic conditions that pose a risk to the overall economy as consumers and businesses may defer purchases in response to tighter credit and negative financial news, which could negatively affect product demand; (ii) further adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (iii) delays or reductions in consumer or information technology spending; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation, entry of new competitors into the virtualization market, and new product and marketing initiatives by our competitors; (v) our customers’ ability to develop, and to transition to, new products, (vi) the uncertainty of customer acceptance of emerging technology; (vii) rapid technological and market changes in virtualization software; (viii) changes to product development timelines;(ix) our ability to protect our proprietary technology; (x) our ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; and (xi) fluctuating currency exchange rates. These forward looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well