Virtual Iron Software (www.virtualiron.com), a provider of server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management software solutions, today announced the general availability of Version 3.1 of its enterprise-class virtualization platform with full support for both unmodified Windows and Linux. The release offers the first commercial alternative to VMware and targets mainstream user adoption for both enterprise and small to medium business users. At $499 per socket on a perpetual license basis, Virtual Iron establishes the clear price/value leadership position in the market, with comparable capabilities to VMware’s most comprehensive offering for less than 20 percent of the cost.

The company also announced the immediate availability of free, production-ready offerings of the software via download. This is the first time that a true enterprise–class virtualization solution with advanced management capabilities has been made available for free.

Free Enterprise-Class Virtualization and Management

To accelerate deployment of its software and make it as easy as possible for any user to compare Virtual Iron 3.1 to their existing solution, the company has made production-ready offerings of Version 3.1 available absolutely free at http://virtualiron.com/free, users can choose from two different free offerings of Virtual Iron’s full-featured 3.1 Enterprise Edition software package:

1.       Free Single-Server Virtualization and Management – Free Perpetual License up to 4 sockets, unlimited cores. Users can consolidate Linux and Windows virtual servers, run 32 or 64 bit workloads up to 8 CPUs each, create and deploy virtual appliances, and quickly and easily template and clone virtual servers. This is the only free enterprise-class offering that allows users to unlock the full capability of their server investment.

2.       Free Multi-Server Virtual Infrastructure Management - Free 30-Day Evaluation License. Users get all the capabilities of the single-server offering above plus all of Virtual Iron’s advanced virtualization management and policy-based automation capabilities for use in an unlimited multi-server environment. 

Virtual Iron is the only solution provider leveraging the open source hypervisor to provide a free enterprise-class version of the software to users.

“Virtual Iron’s open source economics combined with the industry leading price performance of the Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5300 series now makes enterprise-class virtualization technology affordable to all customers,” said Diane Bryant, Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Server Platforms Group. “Intel is committed to working with Virtual Iron to develop virtualization solutions that address the most demanding customer requirements while maintaining the price/performance leadership that Intel customers have come to expect.”

“The cost of server virtualization should not exceed the price of an industry-standard server,” said John C. Thibault, President and CEO at Virtual Iron. “We will drive broad adoption with an aggressively-priced solution that does not sacrifice the capabilities, performance and reliability required to deploy enterprise applications. Version 3.1 provides an enterprise-ready solution that enables the full benefits of server virtualization at a fraction of the cost. Virtual Iron is also the first and only company to fulfill the market promise of the open source hypervisor project.” 

New Version 3.1 Features

Version 3.1 also takes full advantage of Virtual Iron’s existing capabilities including the open source hypervisor with unmodified guest operating support, large memory (up to 96 GB of RAM), and support for hundreds of virtual servers on a single machine. The platform provides fully integrated virtual infrastructure management and policy-based automation capabilities. Virtual Iron is the only virtualization platform that does not require manual installation or management of software on physical servers. This dramatically simplifies deployment, installations, data center operations and reduces costs.