Virtual Iron Software (www.virtualiron.com), a provider of enterprise-class server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management software, today announced its support for the latest Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 7300 series platforms. With the launch of its latest release, Virtual Iron is among the very first virtualization software solutions to commercially support the new Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 7300 series. This enables Virtual Iron users to gain improved virtualization performance with less overhead for the most demanding workloads on the new Intel platform.

Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 7300 series bring the energy-efficient virtualization performance of Intel® Core Architecture to MP server platforms. This platform delivered up to 167% virtualization performance improvement on Virtual Iron Version 4.0 software based on the vConsolidate performance benchmark, a methodology to accurately and consistently measure performance in a virtualized environment. The results were remarkable. The Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 7300 series-based server utilizing Virtual Iron 4.0 was able to run twice as many Consolidated Stack Units (CSUs) relative to Intel’s previous dual core MP platforms. This unprecedented scalability translates into increased virtualization performance, more VM capacity and higher consolidation ratios improving even further the benefits of virtualization for enterprise data centers.

Virtualization performance of this platform is further enhanced with new Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel-VT) extensions. Virtual Iron is among the first to provide a server virtualization solution supporting these new capabilities, greatly improving the performance of SMP 32-bit guests running the most common and demanding workloads.

“Virtual Iron’s version 4 takes full advantage of Intel’s latest performance advancements in our Quad-Core processors and will deliver end-users the benefits from continuous innovations present on Intel platforms including the new extensions of Intel® Virtualization Technology” said Diane Bryant, Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Server Platforms Group. “Intel is committed to working with Virtual Iron to deliver solutions that address the requirements that our combined customers have come to expect.”

Virtual Iron’s comprehensive virtualization and management software is very complementary to multi-core processing and enables end–users to fully exploit the power of Intel Quad-Core technology. For example, Virtual Iron provides up to 128 gigabytes of memory per physical server as well as the ability to do symmetric multi-processing (SMP) where users can take advantage of up to eight CPUs in a single virtual machine, delivering the industry’s leading performance in a virtualized environment. In addition, Virtual Iron’s powerful virtual infrastructure management capabilities enable users to automatically optimize matching of workloads and available capacity. Virtual Iron was among the first virtualization solution providers to support Intel’s hardware–assisted virtualization technology (Intel VT). This enabled Virtual Iron to support unmodified Windows and Linux guest operating systems while delivering near native performance.

Unlike other virtualization solutions, Virtual Iron offers LiveProvisioning, a “zero touch” automated deployment capability that eliminates the need for physical installation or management of virtualization software on virtualized physical servers. In addition, Virtual Iron’s unique shared storage architecture eliminates the need for complex, proprietary clustered file systems when migrating workloads. This further expands and simplifies users’ ability to support advanced use cases such as high availability, disaster recovery and capacity management.

“Virtual Iron’s latest release, Version 4, delivers remarkable performance on the new Quad-Core Intel platform, further illustrating our ability to support large numbers of demanding production workloads in the enterprise data center,” said Steve Noyes, vice president of engineering for Virtual Iron. “The Xeon 7300 platforms are definitely built for virtualization. Intel’s latest enhancements combined with Virtual Iron’s performance and advanced virtual infrastructure management capabilities, enable users to realize the full value and power of server virtualization and deliver unprecedented levels of price/value performance for users.”

Virtual Iron is an Intel Capital portfolio company and has a strategic technology collaboration agreement with Intel.