Virtual Instruments Partners with ONPATH Technologies to Lower Cost of Real-Time Fibre Channel SAN Optimization

New SANInsight 8GFC Rover Reduces risk of migrating mission-critical applications to a private cloud

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, November 15, 2011 - Virtual Instruments, the leader in storage area network (SAN) and virtual infrastructure optimization solutions, today introduced its SANInsight 8G Fibre Channel Rover the first enterprise-grade physical layer switch from Virtual Instruments to support 2, 4, and 8G Fibre Channel (FC) networks. In collaboration with partner ONPATH Technologies, the new device provides advanced capabilities that extend the accessibility of the VirtualWisdom® solution in enterprise SANs and reduce the cost of virtual infrastructure performance, utilization, and availability monitoring.

To reduce the cost of real-time monitoring for 8Gb FC SANs, Virtual Instruments and ONPATH Technologies collaborated to develop the new SANInsight 8GFC Rover, which features 2, 4, and 8Gb FC SAN support, and a scalable, software-configurable architecture. The number and connection configurations of SAN links to be monitored and the line rate of each SAN link can be managed remotely via the VirtualWisdom software, without the need for hardware changes or disruptive reconfigurations. This enables enterprise customers to more cost-effectively expand their real-time monitoring deployments, maximizing the number of SAN links monitored by a VirtualWisdom SAN Performance Probe.

The joint collaboration between ONPATH Technologies and Virtual Instruments included both hardware and software integration from both sides, creating an offering that is optimized around the VirtualWisdom solution at an unprecedented low cost for 8Gb Fibre Channel SANs deployed within the virtualized data center and private clouds.

“As companies move their business-critical applications to a private or hybrid cloud, real-time monitoring of the physical and virtual infrastructure is becoming essential to ensuring the performance, utilization, and availability of this new complex IT environment,” said William “Skip” Bacon, CTO of Virtual Instruments. ”Our partnership with ONPATH Technologies has enabled us to develop a cost-effective solution that addresses the key pain points IT managers are feeling now, with the flexibility to support future data center growth.”

“Private cloud infrastructures are mission-critical, and data center managers must architect their infrastructure to provide continuous actionable data on performance, utilization, and the potential risks to ensure SLA adherence,” said Brian McCann, CEO ONPATH Technologies. “The SANInsight 8GFC Rover solution we’ve developed together - combining VirtualWisdom’s monitoring and analysis capabilities and ONPATH’s innovative physical layer switching architecture - will help Global 2000 businesses maximize application performance and availability as they deploy within a private cloud.

About the SANInsight 8GFC Rover
The SANInsight 8Gb Rover is a software-controlled physical layer switch, automated by the VirtualWisdom Server, to share SAN Performance Probes and Protocol Analyzers across SAN links. The Rover is connected to the SAN through Virtual Instrument’s award-winning Traffic Access Points (TAPs), which are inserted into the SAN link to non-intrusively split a portion of the optical power from the SAN link to the Rover to enable out-of-band access for monitoring and diagnostics. The Rover enables time- and event-based sharing of Probes and Analyzers across Roving Groups of SAN Links. To best align monitoring capacity with operational needs, SAN administrators can create a tiered SAN monitoring architecture by varying the duration of the metric collection interval and number of SAN links in the Roving Group for each SAN Performance Probe.

Availability and Pricing
The new VirtualWisdom SANInsight Rover will be available in late November. For more information, visit: Virtual Instruments Products.

About Virtual Instruments

Virtual Instruments offers the award-winning VirtualWisdom® and SANInsight® virtual infrastructure optimization solutions that provide deep monitoring and analysis of how the virtualized IT infrastructure and the SAN affect business-critical application performance. Global 2000 customers across a broad range of industries achieve significant cost savings in virtualization and SAN deployments by optimizing utilization, performance and availability of IT resources.  The company was founded in June 2008 via a spin-out from Finisar Corp.; it has headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and can be found online at http://www.virtualinstruments.com.

About ONPATH

ONPATH Technologies is the leading provider of scalable connectivity and monitoring solutions for high-performance networks. ONPATH Universal Connectivity System and HorizON Software deliver an advanced platform that automates and secures data center and test infrastructure to help network managers conserve time, increase utilization, and save money compared to manual patching or complex mesh switching architectures. ONPATH currently has over one million installed ports throughout Fortune 1,000 and Government customers. For more information, visit www.onpathtech.com.