VMworld opened this week with introductions by Vizioncore of some new products that work in virtual environments.

Vizioncore, which focuses on backing up VMware ESX server environments, launched a new version of its vRanger Pro 3.2 backup and data protection software. The new version lets IT backup not only VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 environments but physical servers as well.

With vRanger Pro, IT administrators can schedule regular backups of either the entire virtual server image or just the information that has changed and run those backups while the virtual machine is running. Images of virtual machines can be stored on a storage-area network (SAN) or sent over a WAN to remote locations to support disaster recovery.

The new version also supports physical to virtual machine disaster recovery whereby image-level backups of any physical Windows server are captured and stored. VRanger Pro also features write speed enhancements that reduce restore times by as much as 50%.

The new version also incorporates Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Copy Service to pause applications and quiesce databases in order to provide consistent backup images.

Vizioncore also rolled out a new version of its vReplicator replication tool, which features a more simplified disaster recovery process, easier failover testing and improved replication speeds. The company also enhanced its virtual machine optimization tool, vOptimizer, which can now reduce Microsoft and VMware virtual machine size by as much as 80%.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW and host of both the Masters of Storage and Masters of Servers Solution Centers.