According to Gartner, 74 percent of enterprises are now pursuing hybrid IT strategies. HotLink technologies are built from the ground up to simplify the complexity of managing hybrid IT with the only solution that transforms VMware vCenter into a hybrid IT management hub spanning VMware vSphere, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (KVM). With HotLink, enterprises seamlessly extend their existing VMware vCenter infrastructure, workflows and tools to cross-platform workloads without deploying additional consoles or sacrificing key administration or management features. This unified, transformative approach is critical for deployment of complex, multi-tier production applications in a hybrid IT environment, whether the hybrid platforms are on-premise or combined with public cloud services. 

“Production and scale-out use cases are mandatory for broad enterprise adoption of hybrid IT, but management complexity can quickly erode the benefits. Our solutions were purpose-built for the transformation needed to administer, deploy and manage blended infrastructure in a holistic and agile way,” said Lynn LeBlanc, CEO of HotLink. “With HotLink, customers benefit from the robust administration and management capabilities of VMware vCenter across the spectrum of hybrid platforms without an expensive systems integration project.” 

IDC Research Director Eric Burgener said, “The use of hybrid clouds in enterprise computing workloads is a matter of when, not if. HotLink's patented Transformation Engine enables a single administrative console to be used to natively manage multiple heterogeneous virtual environments. This management model — the ability to manage infrastructure across traditional, private cloud, public cloud and virtual private cloud — is a game changer that nearly all IT environments will move to over time.” 

HotLink Hybrid Express is an easy-to-implement, intuitive plug-in to VMware vCenter for deploying, administering and managing hybrid on- and off-premise resources side-by-side with VMware vSphere. Key enhancements include: 

• Multi-hypervisor support – Expanded platform support beyond AWS to include Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer and Red Hat KVM, providing comprehensive on- and off-premise platform choice in a single HotLink product
  
  
• Software defined hybrid networking – Auto-discover and unify administration and management of multi-hypervisor and AWS networking in VMware vCenter with the addition of HotLink CIMple™ SDN 
  
  

HotLink DR Express enables low-cost, comprehensive VMware data protection in AWS, including backup, replication, disaster recovery and business continuity. New enhancements include: 

• Protection dashboard and analytics – Provides a consolidated view of all protected virtual machines (VMs) and their status, as well as detailed data for download and analysis 
  
  
• Flexible storage reconfiguration – Reconfigure and reduce on-premise storage needed for hybrid computing and data protection 
  
  
• Restore point rollback – Rollback the replication baseline of future restore points to any prior successful seed or delta 
  
  
• File server replication – Automated, continuous bi-directional replication of large file servers between on-premise and Amazon S3 
  
  
• Database server replication – Automated, continuous bi-directional replication of large database servers (virtual or physical) between on-premise and Amazon EC2 

Additional capabilities for both HotLink Hybrid Express and HotLink DR Express include: 

• Multi-disk and large disk support – Automatically import virtual machines to Amazon EC2 with complex multi-disk architectures and disk sizes up to 1 TB 
  
  
• EC2 disk creation and configuration – Easily add disks on demand, eliminating manual steps to create and attach additional volumes to EC2 instances 
  
  
• AWS security group manager – Extends VMware vCenter capabilities to include viewing, creation and modification of AWS security groups 
  
  
• Hybrid performance dashboard and analytics – Review or download detailed performance data on VMs, application stacks, hybrid tasks and bandwidth usage for monitoring, planning and troubleshooting 
  
  
• Expanded monitoring and alerting options – Receive real-time alerts on critical hybrid tasks via smart devices for convenient monitoring and change management 
  
  
• Automated infrastructure diagnostics – Verify hybrid infrastructure and configuration accuracy of networking, firewall rules, storage and connectivity through automated testing 

Availability 

The new versions of HotLink Hybrid Express and HotLink DR Express are available immediately. 

Supporting resources: 

• Read IDC report: “HotLink: A Critical Step Forward in Leveraging Hybrid Cloud” 
  
  
• Sign up for webinar: http://hotlink.com/news/event.php 
  
  
• Request pricing or product demonstration: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  
  
• Visit us at VMworld 2014: Booth #2147 

About HotLink Corporation 

HotLink is on a mission to dramatically simplify hybrid IT management complexity through the power of its patented transformation technology. The company’s 1,200-plus customers span technology, financial services, e-commerce, manufacturing, cloud service providers, education, telecommunications and more. Industry accolades include: CRN Virtualization 50 and Emerging Vendor for 2014; 2013 Best of VMworld awards in Public and Hybrid Cloud Computing, as well as Storage and Backup; 2012 VMworld Best of Show and Top Virtualization Management; Virtualization Review’s 2013 Best Cloud Application; and Network World Companies to Watch 2013. HotLink is a privately held, venture capital-backed company based in Santa Clara, Calif. For more information, visit www.hotlink.com or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. 

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Source: Gartner, Private Cloud Computing and The Future of Infrastructure, Thomas Bittman, January 7, 2014.