PlateSpin has announced the release of a disaster recovery hardware appliance, PlateSpin Forge, to protect physical and virtual server workloads. John Ko, product marketing manager for PlateSpin told CRN that PlateSpin Forge is the company’s first offering specifically targeting the disaster recovery market. He added that the purpose-built recovery solution includes prepackaged and preconfigured hardware, software and virtual infrastructure, addressing issues faced by both SMBs and enterprise. 

“We felt there was a host of under-served, under-protected workloads in customer environments,” he said. “Disaster recovery is integral part of any organisation, across industry and across different sectors.”

Ko claimed the out-of-the-box solution can protect up to 25 workloads, regardless of whether they are physical or virtual. Traditionally disaster recovery is a laborious and time-consuming process, which generates an opportunity in the local market for a cost-effective and efficient solution, he stated.

“Taking a step back and looking at it more holistically there’s a whole sleuth of disaster recovery solutions out there, however we bundle it together in a hardware appliance model which encapsulates everything you need to get started. We tried to focus on the simplicity – simple, effective and the ability to test and deliver to the customer in a quick timeframe,” said Ko.

According to Ko, PlateSpin Forge allows customers to conduct regular tests without impacting the production environment.

“By isolating the application in a virtual private network, customers can not only conduct tests, they can record, monitor and audit their test records,” he said.

Greg Cullen, regional director Asia Pacific at PlateSpin claimed Australian resellers could cash in on the $9 billion worldwide disaster recovery market.

“We’re seeing there are a lot of unprotected workloads out there. I think opportunity for the channel is leveraging an all-in-one solution like we’ve put together,” he said. “There really is a substantial market in this area.”

PlateSpin is currently undertaking technical training for the channel in Sydney and Melbourne, with 25 IT professionals having already participated in the program prior to the product release. Cullen claimed the vendor is also offering resellers a 25 percent margin and low cost of entry.

“There’s really good opportunity for resellers just starting to get across virtualisation and disaster recovery to break into these lucrative markets,” he said.

Recently acquired by Novell, PlateSpin declined to comment on the deal due to be finalised in the next couple of weeks. Cullen is optimistic, however, that the partnership will prove to be beneficial to both parties.