Veeam Software, award-winning provider of systems management tools for VMware virtual datacenter environments, announced today that Veeam Backup & Replication™ has achieved another industry first: version 4.1, available today, is the first to support replication to the paid/licensed version of VMware ESXi™.

Veeam Software has a history of innovation, being first in the industry to deliver data protection and disaster recovery to the ESXi platform: Veeam Backup & Replication 2.0 (July 2008) was the first to support VMware ESXi backup. Veeam achieved another industry first with version 4.0 (October 2009), which was the first to support VMware vSphere™.

“VMware ESXi represents an innovative breakthrough platform for virtualization,” explained Ratmir Timashev, Veeam President and CEO. “It is secure, easy to manage, has a small footprint, and the installation is completely stateless, so it doesn’t rely on the presence of a local disk. These are just a few reasons why the industry is witnessing an increased adoption of ESXi. More and more of our customers are adopting ESXi as well, and that is why they have asked us to deliver advanced data protection and disaster recovery capabilities for ESXi. We are delighted to be the first to do this.”

With this new release, Veeam extends its leadership in the VMware data protection and disaster recovery market with the most future-proof solution and the most customer value. “By standardizing on the ESXi platform, enterprises experience lower management costs, while still achieving desired recovery point and time objectives with Veeam Backup & Replication 4.1,” Timashev added.

“ESXi is really the next progression in virtualization,” said vExpert, VCP, trainer and author David Davis. “It is thinner, it installs quicker, and boots faster than ESX. It should be more efficient and put less load on the server. Still, it can perform all the same enterprise features that ESX can. With supporting applications and tools by third-party software companies such as Veeam, ESXi becomes even more valuable to enterprises and small businesses alike.”

Pricing an Availability

Veeam Backup & Replication 4.1 is now generally available. North American pricing for the new version starts at $599 per socket, but the previous version’s price of $499 per socket will be honored on orders placed by Dec. 31, 2009. More information, including a product video, is available at http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-backup.html.