Infrastructure Virtualization Software

Scalent's Virtual Operating Environment (V/OE) software lets you rapidly change which servers are running, what software stacks your servers are running, and how those servers are connected to network and storage, without needing to make physical machine, cable, LAN connection or SAN access changes. [Please see our brief animated demo here]

This means that server repurposing becomes nearly instantaneous, as changing system function and topology doesn't require touching physical cables or machines. You can rack once, cable once, then reconfigure repeatedly, as needed, effortlessly. Failover is automatic, and your data center functionality matches your data center diagram - what you see is what you get.

Consider the technical business challenges that Scalent solves:

Server Repurposing and Failover
Server repurposing means taking existing physical machines and using them to do new things. Perhaps you were running QA tests on your Microsoft Exchange system, and now you'd like to run a production Datasynapse server - or perhaps a production server failed, and you need to recreate it on a new machine, quickly. Traditional approaches to repurposing have been slow and painful, requiring physical cable movement, machine movement, disk re-imaging, and software reinstallation.

Scalent makes repurposing and failover simple and fast, allowing you to repurpose machines without touching the physical machines or cables, and without reinstalling any software.

Connectivity to Network and Storage
One challenge in server repurposing is connectivity. Each server in your system has a unique network (LAN) address and storage (SAN or NAS) access configuration, which defines how each server can interact with other systems. Traditional approaches to server repurposing (including hypervisor-based server virtualization) require extensive manual reconfiguration if a server is moved to run on a different physical machine with different connectivity - reconfiguration up to and including physically removing network cards from the machines.

Scalent automatically adjusts network connectivity and storage access , so that your server maintains the same addressing and connectivity even as you move the software stack from machine to machine. So data center reconfiguration can be done in minutes, painlessly, without needing to involve other departments -- and you don't need to physically co-locate your machines running VMware ESX or Xen farms.

Repeatable, Real-Time, Continuous Control
In a dynamic environment, you'd like to do more than "provision" a server once. You'd like to be able to monitor load on servers, and quickly step in to start more machines or fewer machines as load changed, or bring up the same servers (software stacks) on different machines if machines failed.

Scalent can bring up a failed server on new hardware, with the same network and storage access and addressing, within minutes - without manual intervention. So you can rack once, cable once, and then run what's needed when and where it's needed.

Business Continuity and Lab & Capacity Automation
Using Scalent Systems, Enterprises, Test Labs, and Managed Service Providers gain new capabilities. For example, Business Continuity can be achieved without massive additional hardware investment, as Scalent repurposes existing machines on the fly for automatic failover. Lab & Capacity Automation for test labs and just happens, as machines can be repurposed towards and away from application needs - adding SQL servers and removing QA servers, for example - on an as-needed basis. Capacity can be "dialed up" or "dialed down" rapidly with Scalent. No new hardware required. It's simple, and it works.

See the Disaster Recovery Journal Webinar, "From Dead Bare Metal to a
Revived Data Center, in Five Minutes or Less", featuring Scalent Systems!