Vizioncore, an independent supplier of virtual machine management tools, has launched version 4.0 of its vRanger Pro, now call vRanger Pro Data Protection Platform. The former backup and recovery tool has been redesigned with broader virtual machine data protections built into it.

The vRanger product serves as a backup system in VMware's ESX Server environments. In version 4.0., Vizioncore has made virtual machine backup a direct-to-target operation. No proxy middleware sits between the virtual machine host and the backup storage medium, regardless of whether it is local or remote. Rather, a full-image backup of a virtual machine is executed directly to storage, and can be stored in either Windows SFTP file repository or a Linux CIFS file repository.

Backed up virtual machines may then be recovered over multiple protocols and restored in different ways. The full image can be restored on a virtualized host, or individual files that made up the virtual machine, such as the operating system or the application file, can be restored independently, said Chris Akerberg, COO of Vizioncore.

In addition, vRanger Pro includes a Smart Backup Manager management console that lets an administrator start, stop, disable or edit a backup procedure while it is running. It can also direct that simultaneous backups occur across a set of ESX Servers or through multiple VMware Virtual Centers, each of which manages a set of ESX Server hosts.

Backups may be full image, or capture the combined operating system and application, along with data in a virtual machine; incremental or a backup of everything that's occurred since a previous backup; or differential, capturing only the changes in files and data since the previous backup, Akerberg said. Such fine-grained tools are needed in virtualized environments to allow administrators "to take full control of their virtual infrastructures for greater levels of efficiency," Akerberg said in the announcement Tuesday.

Vizioncore produces a suite of tools, such as vControl and vFoglight, for monitoring and managing ESX Server virtual machines. Its vConverter tool can translate virtual files between VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Virtual Iron's open source Xen-based hypervisor and Citrix Systems XenServer.

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