AutoVirt File Virtualization Solution Makes the Grade with Measured Progress

NASHUA, N.H., April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- AutoVirt™, Inc., the leading provider of file virtualization solutions for Windows data migration and management, today announced that Measured Progress, a pioneer in customized assessment products and educational services, has chosen AutoVirt as the foundation for its Windows file server consolidation initiative.  AutoVirt was chosen by Measured Progress to replace NetApp's now end of life VFM solution, and as a solution to simplify and lower the cost of its ongoing Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS) management.  AutoVirt was chosen over competing solutions for its ease of use and absolute reliability, as well as its significantly lower cost.  

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Measured Progress offers full-service, customized, standards-based educational assessment programs.  As a critical component of the services, not only does it assist in the creation of the test, but once the tests are taken, it collects them, evaluates and scores the responses, and delivers a highly detailed and thorough analysis of the results.  Measured Progress estimates that this process will generate over 24 TBs of data this Spring.  This data will be cycled through storage tiers based upon where it is in the collection, evaluation and/or reporting process – and eventually, into long-term archival storage.  DFS is utilized to mask this movement of data, as well as provide the redundancy necessary to ensure data availability in the face of failure or during peak load processing periods.  Recently, Measured Progress also initiated a significant consolidation initiative intended to retire older storage devices storing highly business critical corporate user data. The goal is to migrate onto new NetApp FAS3040 filer clusters and Sun Storage 7410 Systems.

"We had been using NetApp VFM, the OEM version of the Brocade StorageX product, for a number of years to manage our Microsoft DFS environment.  We used NetApp VFM, as we found that other tools for managing DFS were cumbersome and painful to use," said Jared Simms, Senior Systems Engineer at Measured Progress.  "At the same time, we had been using AutoVirt for our data migration activities.  When we learned StorageX was being 'end-of-lifed' it made perfect sense to leverage AutoVirt for our DFS management too."

"Measured Progress is a great example of many of our customers, where AutoVirt was originally purchased as a highly-affordable data migration tool.  Measured Progress then experienced first-hand how easy the AutoVirt platform was to deploy and manage, as well as its ability to execute completely error free migration of file data with zero disruption to users," said Brian Gladstein, Vice President of Marketing for AutoVirt.  "We are delighted that based upon this initial success, as well as after careful review of alternative solutions on the market, Measured Progress has chosen AutoVirt to manage its DFS environment, as well as its consolidation initiative."

Simms plans to take advantage of AutoVirt's ability to insert a global namespace to organize network shares and shield users from the backend logistics.  The global namespace will also enable Simms and his team to eliminate the manual work involved in maintaining client access to networked data.  Moreover, with AutoVirt's global namespace registering all changes to data location, it will be possible to automate many of their other storage management tasks.  

Simms added, "We also really like that AutoVirt is an out-of-band solution.  This eliminates the associated cost and added latency of an in-band approach, while allowing us to maintain greater flexibility and management control."

For further information on Measured Progress, please visit: www.measuredprogress.com.

About AutoVirt

AutoVirt is the leading provider of file virtualization solutions for Windows data migration and management.  AutoVirt's file virtualization solution eliminates the biggest obstacle to any file management project: user disruption. IT administrators can easily virtualize access to files with AutoVirt, and then use the platform to migrate, consolidate, replicate, or tier data across any number of physical devices without affecting users or reconfiguring applications. This means that, for the first time, IT departments can seamlessly move data around while it is in use, dynamically route users to disaster recovery (DR) sites, and transparently tier data to cost-effective platforms, driving significant savings in storage hardware and management. AutoVirt's software-only platform installs easily and requires no changes to existing infrastructure. For further information, please call 603-546-2900, e-mail [email protected], or visit www.autovirt.com.

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SOURCE AutoVirt(TM), Inc.