Neverfail helps VMware vCenter with high availability

VMware has gone through a whole host of name changes and rebranding efforts for its many products and solutions. One of those products that received a name change was VMware VirtualCenter, the company’s provisioning and management server solution for VI3. The new name, while not much different, is vCenter.

On Tuesday, while at the VMworld Europe 2009 show in Cannes, France, VMware unleashed a number of new virtualization products to the more than 4,000 attendees of the event. One of those products was vCenter Server Heartbeat, whicht monitors and manages the automatic fail-over of VMware vCenter Server.

[ The IDG News Service has the scoop from the VMworld conference: “VMware CTO: New strategy is all about management” and “VMware adds to cloud strategy” ]

As companies continue to deploy VMware virtualization technology in their datacenters, they’re finding that one of the compelling reasons for doing so is to gain high availability for their servers, applications, and environments. And guess what? It’s working. Except now there’s a new problem — VMware vCenter itself becomes a mission-critical application that requires continuous availability so that it can continue to ensure high availability to the rest of the VMware environment. Pretty tricky stuff.

So VMware looked to bring high-availability capabilities to its vCenter Server and did so with the new Heartbeat solution. Heartbeat is designed to protect the vCenter Server against unplanned downtime. To do so, it continuously monitors VMware vCenter Server connectivity and components, including the license server and VMware Update Manager. And if an error or failure occurs, it can restart the entire VMware vCenter Server instance on another server within the datacenter or to an offsite location via the WAN.

So where did VMware get this technology? It worked out an OEM deal with a company based out of Austin, Texas, called Neverfail. The deal incorporates Neverfail’s continuous availability technology and application management framework (AMF) software into the new VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat.

Andrew Barnes, SVP of corporate development for Neverfail, said, “People have recognized that downtime of vCenter Server could seriously disrupt their virtual infrastructure and their business, and so as more and more people deploy mission-critical applications on VMware, an increasing need has emerged for a solution to ensure resilience and high availability.” He added, “Neverfail is proud to be the company providing this for VMware users.”

Now that VMware vCenter Server is fully protected against downtime with the Neverfail solution, Barnes said that VMware users should be able to sleep better at night. Adding, “With the Neverfail licensing deal, VMware has demonstrated its commitment to providing the best application-aware solution available so that users can be confident in the availability of their mission-critical VMware management platform.”

VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat is priced at $9,995 if purchased separately from the VMware vCenter Server license and will be available in March 2009. It works in conjunction with vCenter Server, and when purchased together, the bundled price is $12,995.