Disaster-recovery-as-a-service vendor Axcient Inc. has shipped an updated version of Fusion, the cloud infrastructure solution it introduced in June.
Like the 1.0 edition of that product, Fusion 1.5 is designed to help businesses consolidate typically separate non-production workloads in areas like backup, archiving, and testing. In addition, however, the new release includes workflow automation capabilities that let users define and automatically execute all of the steps involved in processes like protecting and recovering data or standing up test environments.
Those workflows can include actions required to launch not just virtual machines but entire networks, such as assigning IP addresses, configuring logins, and starting applications.
“It results in a single click failover process that then enables that business to be back up and running in [an] under one-hour timeframe,” says Mike Dupuy, senior manager for product marketing at Axcient, which is based in Mountain View, Calif. “From an end user perspective the transition is seamless.”
New in Fusion 1.5 as well is orchestration functionality that lets users configure memory, CPU, storage tiers, and more in public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises resources on an automated, behind-the-scenes basis.
“It really eliminates a lot of the complexity of having to really understand the ins and outs of the infrastructure when leveraging a traditional on-premises solution or understanding the ins and outs of a particular cloud provider,” Dupuy says.
Unlike the original Fusion release, which could restore entire virtual machines only, version 1.5 includes a web-based portal that enables users to recover individual objects, files, and folders on a self-serve basis. That functionality is available in VMware ESXi environments only at present, though Axcient will add support for Microsoft Hyper-V as well in the future.
Fusion 1.5 also transfers data to and from the cloud far more efficiently than its predecessor. According to Dupuy, network optimization and de-duplication enhancements enable the updated edition of Fusion to utilize about 90 percent less bandwidth than the product’s first release.
“We’ve really honed in on the efficiency piece,” Dupuy says. “That way our customers with smaller bandwidth to the cloud have shorter recovery windows.”
Axcient is shipping the latest version of Fusion while the annual VMworld user event is underway in Las Vegas. The company became an elite tier member of VMware’s Technology Alliance Partner Program last month, Dupuy notes, and working with VMware to boost Fusion’s performance in vSphere server virtualization environments remains one of its ongoing priorities.
“We will continue to work with VMware to really help simplify, automate, and streamline operations for our customers who are leveraging VMware as part of their virtualized environment,” he says.
Axcient has signed over two dozen Fusion customers since the product’s launch, Dupuy reports, and seeks to have more than 100 by the end of the year.
