Unitrends unveils Boomerang

Unitrends has announced Boomerang, a powerful new virtual appliance that enables virtualisation administrators to simply and affordably move virtual machines (VMs) from VMware to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Using technology from its May 2014 acquisition of Yuruware, an innovator of data protection technology for AWS and other public clouds, Unitrends’ new offering allows businesses of all sizes to cloudburst, protect and migrate VMs.

With Boomerang, virtualisation administrators can adopt a hybrid cloud approach to protect and migrate VMs, and to work in the cloud or on-premise.

Key features of the appliance include:

Cloudbursting – Frees capacity in on-premise virtual environments by temporarily sending VMs to run in AWS. Administrators can easily copy VMs from AWS when they are ready to bring them back to VMware.

Disaster Recovery and Backup – Replicates virtual environments and stores them in AWS. In the event of an outage, disaster or catastrophic failure, live VMs can be spun up to run in the cloud within minutes.

Migration – Automates migration from VMware to AWS. Virtual environments are automatically re-created in AWS, reducing the errors and costs associated with manual processes.

“Virtualisation and cloud computing have disrupted the data protection landscape, and Unitrends believes companies of all sizes should be able to take advantage of these technology advances,” said Dr. Anna Liu, director, research and development, Cloud Products and general manager, Unitrends Australia. “With Boomerang, even the smallest organisations can use AWS for load balancing, disaster recovery and migration. Being able to adapt data protection strategies to meet evolving data centre requirements is no longer a benefit reserved for large enterprises with massive head-counts and budget.”

“Boomerang exemplifies the high caliber of innovation we consistently bring to market to solve complex problems with simple, yet sophisticated data protection solutions,” added Unitrends’ CEO Mike Coney. “Designed to specifically address the needs of virtual-only environments, this new appliance enables organisations to protect and migrate data to the cloud as well as tap the power of AWS to gain more storage and processing speed in just minutes—on the fly. Boomerang provides remarkable flexibility at an unbeatable price point.”