Double-Take Software has announced Double-Take for VMware Infrastructure 3.0, a solution for protecting virtual machines running on VMware ESX Server, a component of the VMware Infrastructure software suite.

The company said the 3.0 version enhancements simplify the process of deploying and managing protection for virtualized workloads and further improve on the product's ability to provide disaster recovery and automated failover of VMware virtual machines.

"As the adoption of VMware virtualization continues to increase, it is important that our customers have the tools they need to optimize their VMware deployments," said Parag Patel, Vice President, alliances at VMware. "This new version of Double-Take for VMware Infrastructure is a purpose-built workload recovery tool that complements the VMware platform and delivers additional value to our joint customers and business partners."

The following new features are available in Double-Take for VMware Infrastructure 3.0:

• One-Click Failover and Restore
• File Difference Mirror
• Standalone Installation Support
• Bandwidth Limiting - Selectable Replication Routes
• Target Path Mapping
• Pre-Staged Target Data Support

Double-Take noted that VMware virtualization software enables customers to realize business benefits, including reduced capital and operating expenses, assured business continuity, strengthened security and reduced power and cooling requirements. Double-Take for VMware Infrastructure protects VMware virtualized environments by capturing changes regularly and keeping the target virtual disk(s) up to date and ready for recovery at any time, the company added. In a disaster or power outage, the replicated virtual machine can be started on a second VMware ESX Server host with the most recent data.

"The next stage in virtualization adoption will be centered on customers leveraging the technology to lower organizational risk," said John Humphreys, analyst from IDC. "The offering of Double-Take for VMware Infrastructure enables customers to economically bring business continuity services to a much larger percentage of their applications."

"When Double-Take for VMware Infrastructure was initially released a year ago, the goal was to provide a reliable and easy way to protect virtual machines running on VMware ESX Server ," said Bob Roudebush, Director of Solutions Engineering, Double-Take Software. "The latest release of Double-Take for VMware Infrastructure is a compelling disaster recovery product for customers virtualizing their business-critical workloads. A new automated failover testing feature, for example, allows IT administrators to practice recoveries of virtual machines without disrupting their production environment."