Vizioncore vReplicator 2.1

Next you set the replication frequency for the job. To prevent a problem with a replication starting before the previous one has finished, the replication interval is the length of time from the completion of the previous job to the start of the next job. Even if you set an interval of 15 minutes (the minimum allowable interval), should it take 1 hour to replicate, there will be 1hr and 15 minutes of data to replicate next time. It is recommended that for critical servers you carefully monitor how long replication takes. Once you have defined the interval, you just need to set the initial start date and time.

The next step is to choose the host to which you want to replicate this VM. You need to be able to see the host server so if it is located on a different site, ensure that you can browse to it. Vizioncore recommend that you check the box that disables Guest Quiescing if you are replicating a database product to prevent locks on data rows during the replication process.

The first time a replication takes place, vReplicator takes a snapshot of the VM, copies the data to the target creating the new VM, builds a Virtual Machine Disk Format (VMDK) map, commit the snapshot of the VM and complete the data transfer.

From that point on, every replication consists of comparing the two VMDK maps (source and target) and then moving just those blocks that have changed. The target VMDK map is then recreated and the replication complete.

This was an incredibly easy product to setup and configure. The only two points of annoyance were that the help file points to a location on the Vizionware site that is no longer there and the lack of authentication when talking to an SMTP server.

As there is no way of updating the help file until the next version ships, this seems sloppy of Vizioncore. The only other alternative is to download the beta documentation for the next version.

This process can easily cope with moving multiple VMs over an ADSL link allowing for replication from branch offices to datacentres or even from the office of a small business to the home of a director.

This is a product that can be deployed by any company irrespective of its size and with almost no real computing knowledge. For dealers that are increasingly looking to offer services to the SME market, there is clearly scope here for some value added services. ISPs might also want to consider this as an extension to the existing "network" storage offers they already have in place.