Hybrid virtualization management developer HotLink Corp. has announced HotLink DR Express, which allows users to backup VMs to AWS and, when disaster strikes, run those VMs remotely on Amazon, providing rapid disaster recovery for an upfront backup cost of $25 per VM per month on an annual subscription (not including recovery costs). Users backup their VMs and, when needed, run them on Amazon, through VMware vCenter, so all operations look to the operators exactly like their routine operations, with no unfamiliar interfaces or requirements that can easily cause errors in a high-pressure disaster recovery situation. When the company has recovered from the disaster, the operators can migrate their VMs back in-house again working entirely through vCenter.

HotLink DR Express is designed to meet the needs of applications that do not rate high priced disaster recovery services and companies that cannot cost-justify a large DR investment. Most of those applications are protected solely through tape backup, which means that recovery is problematic and time consuming at best, says HotLink CEO Lynn LeBlanc. At best DR using tape requires first that the company buy or rent a host system, recover the right tapes from storage, install the application plus the hypervisor, if virtualization is required, read the backup off the tape, and then boot up the system. This can take days or longer, while vital company operations remain at a standstill, negatively impacting company operations. If the tape proves difficult to read, the delay can be longer and vital company data may be lost.

By comparison, with HotLink DR Express, recovering VMs is a simple operation that IT technicians can do in minutes in vCenter, using familiar controls. Because DR Express does incremental backups at user-configured intervals through the day, data loss and business operation interruptions are minimized. And because it runs on Amazon EC2, the cost is low and the VM is available to end-users through the Internet wherever they may be.

Every year small companies go out of business due to a fire in their headquarters that destroys their records and causes a major interruption in their business. In  fully virtualized environment, with all VMs backed up to AWS through HotLink DR Express, the business can recover all its vital operations within minutes, operating from a temporary location or even as a virtual office with employees working from home, saving the business.

LeBlanc said the idea for HotLink DR Express came from internal experiences. HotLink is known for Hotlink SuperVISOR, which allows users to manage multiple hypervisors through vCenter, and Hybrid Express, that allows users to manage VMs running on Amazon EC2 through vCenter. In 2012 it experienced internal hardware failures that forced it to recover VMs from tape backups. That made company engineers start looking for a better solution, and when they did not find one LeBlanc had her company focus on developing one. The result is HotLink DR Express.

HotLink DR Express is available in both 30-day trial and subscription editions. For now it is limited to VMware VMs, although in the future it may be extended to other hypervisors. HotLink will be offering demos at its booth, #2048, at VMworld August 25-29 in San Francisco.

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