PlateSpin ULC, a Novell company, announced new packaging options for PlateSpin Forge that make the innovative disaster recovery hardware appliance even more cost-effective for small and medium-sized enterprises that need to protect ten or more server workloads.

PlateSpin Forge is a purpose-built consolidated recovery solution that includes pre-packaged and preconfigured hardware, software and VMware virtualization technology to accelerate deployment, simplify configuration and reduce total cost of ownership. Small and medium-sized enterprises now have the flexibility to purchase PlateSpin Forge in either a 10 or 25 workload protection model to more cost-effectively match their recovery investment with the size of their data center and the number of physical or virtual server workloads they need to protect in the event of downtime or a disaster.

"Small and medium-sized enterprises have unique disaster recovery requirements," said John Stetic, Senior Director, Product Management, PlateSpin. "They need affordable recovery solutions that can be quickly and easily implemented and administered with limited IT staffing resources. Using embedded VMware virtualization technology, PlateSpin Forge offers SMEs a unique combination of simplicity and cost-effectiveness for protecting a broad range of physical or virtual server workloads in the data center. With new flexible packaging and pricing options tailored specifically to SMEs, PlateSpin Forge puts full workload protection and recovery within reach for all organizations regardless of size or recovery budget."

Customers can purchase a PlateSpin Forge 10-workload model and add additional protection in increments of five workloads to ensure that their recovery solution can grow with their business. The SME marketplace is increasingly embracing cost-effective recovery solutions, like PlateSpin Forge, that use virtualization to make recovery in the event of a disaster as simple as powering on a virtual machine. Virtualized recovery technologies also align with broader goals and strategic initiatives that aim to make IT environments more flexible and easier to manage.

"In addition to application and infrastructure decisions, DR technology investments should be included in discussions regarding IT consolidation efforts such as server, storage, and data center consolidation," according to Stephanie Balaouras of Forrester Research (Forrester, "Building the Business Case For Disaster Recovery Spending," April 3, 2008). "Many of the technologies that facilitate application recovery and limit data loss for disaster recovery also enable these key initiatives. The strongest example is server virtualization. Server virtualization not only facilitates server consolidation and the deployment of networked storage, but it also facilitates the rapid restart of applications at a recovery site when used in conjunction with replication."

With the introduction of the PlateSpin Forge 10-workload model, authorized PlateSpin resellers have an even greater opportunity to provide their SME customers with affordable, out-of-the-box disaster recovery solutions and value-added services.

"Virtualization technologies have made significant inroads into businesses of all sizes from SME through to the largest Enterprise organizations," said Peter Pollari, Business Manager, Virtualization Practice, Ingram Micro. "In particular, SMEs have really begun to embrace the benefits of virtualization and the productivity gains it brings to their business. Now with the new 10- workload model, the PlateSpin Forge hardware appliance affords SMEs all the same workload recovery protection elements that an Enterprise user would traditionally expect in a robust, easy-to-use, out-of-the-box solution. As a business grows, the PlateSpin Forge appliance can also grow to accommodate changing recovery needs. Ingram Micro is excited to be able to build the Forge product range into its Virtualization Solutions offerings to the reseller community."

Nation-wide New Zealand distributor Datastor works with clients to address a broad range of IT needs including enterprise software and storage solutions. "In the New Zealand market, we talk with a lot of small and medium-sized businesses who can’t afford the high cost of traditional recovery solutions or the specialized resources needed to support them," said David Rosenberg, Sales Director, Datastor. "The PlateSpin Forge 10-workload model provides a comprehensive out-of-the-box disaster recovery solution at an affordable price, making it ideal for our SME clients. With this new offering, PlateSpin has again shown its commitment to respond to the needs of the marketplace and to work closely with partners to grow their business."

Providing complete system and data protection in an easy-to-implement package that includes hardware, storage and software, PlateSpin Forge reduces the time and specialized technical resources needed to plan, provision and deploy a recovery environment, enabling SMEs to begin protecting workloads in days rather than months.

PlateSpin Forge now includes a new centralized management console that provides management and "single pane of glass" visibility across multiple PlateSpin Forge appliances, reducing administrative efforts and bringing peace-of-mind that all workloads are protected in the event of an outage.