SoftIron, the worldwide leader in true private cloud infrastructure, today announced VM Squared, a virtualization platform combining simplicity with a true alternative to VMware’s vSphere product suite.

“Analysts tell us one in five enterprises are looking for a real alternative to VMware,” said Phil Straw, CEO at SoftIron. “VM Squared builds on our leadership in True Private Cloud to provide a modern virtualization platform that installs in less than 30 minutes and offers a pathway towards true private cloud.”

Modern Virtualization

VMware was introduced a quarter of a century ago – 6 years before AWS invented the cloud. 

The complexity enterprises put up with back then doesn’t wash today, especially with IT now running workloads in radically simpler public cloud environments.

SoftIron designed VM Squared as an alternative to VMware’s last-century complexity:

• Installs in 30 minutes (or less).
• Streamlined user interface provides a modern cloud feel. No configuration setting is more than a couple clicks away, and clever automation features greatly reduce daily operational overhead.
• Remove barriers to scale. Scaling a VMware solution scales more than just the solution, it increases management complexity and the time, effort, and expertise to provision, monitor, and maintain. VM Squared automates the provisioning and deployment process to enable scale in your solution without a matching scale in management overhead.
• Simple upgrade path to private cloud. Because VM Squared is built by the same team as SoftIron’s HyperCloud, we offer a simple, quick upgrade path to a true, fully-featured private cloud.
• VMware migration tool. VMware may be complex, but upgrading to VM Squared doesn’t have to be. The VM Squared migration tool offers an onramp that migrates your entire VMware vSphere estate quickly and easily.

SoftIron established its ability to uniquely provide a true private cloud experience with HyperCloud

Anyone can provide a true cloud experience in the public cloud. But a true cloud on-premises, or at the edge, ready to deliver full sovereign data compliance? That’s a much more difficult task. But SoftIron is an industry leader in exactly that. When it comes to True Private Cloud, HyperCloud is the only True Private Cloud on the market. No other company delivers the ability to deploy, manage, and maintain True Private Cloud, perfect for sovereign cloud deployments designed for security from the ground up.

Now, organizations can benefit from HyperCloud’s unique True Private Cloud features within their virtualization solution, on their own hardware.

We’ve enabled a wide range of HyperCloud features to run within VM Squared in order to provide users with a modern virtualized environment:

• Multitenancy
  • Ready to go out of the box.
  • Add new tenants in seconds.
  • MSP-ready security compliance.
  • Perfect for Edge deployments.
• Cloud billing 
  • Centralized integrated billing.
  • Intuitive GUI dashboard for chargeback.
  • Role-based access control.
• Cloud scalability 
  • Automated provisioning and deployment.
  • Reduce operational overhead.
  • Light touch deployment and node-add.
  • Scale out and up.
  • Elastic resource allocation.
• Cloud resiliency
  • Highly available by default.
  • Distributed control plane and storage.
  • Move VMs between hosts with zero downtime.
• Cloud upgrade process 
  • One license, all features.
  • Automated one-click upgrade.
  • Non-disruptive upgrades.
• Dedicated marketplace 
  • Click-and-go images ready from Day 1.
  • Easily install Linux, Windows, and partner appliances.
  • Speed up time-to-value through streamlined deployment.
• Straightforward “cloud” management experience
  • Infrastructure that manages itself.
  • Modern UI for a modern cloud feel.
  • Do more with less through efficient resource management.
  • Achieve a cloud experience within your virtualization solution. 

The SoftIron Extra

VM Squared is brought to market by SoftIron, the world’s leading True Private Cloud. This means users enjoy the “SoftIron Advantage”:

• Private cloud heritage. As the provider of the world’s only True Private Cloud, SoftIron enjoys a private cloud heritage that lets us bake in a True Private Cloud experience that competitors cannot.
• Security heritage. Due to SoftIron’s deep experience with the world’s most secure organizations (both government and military), security is in our blood. VM Squared was built with security in mind from the ground up.

Supporting Quotes

“SoftIron’s VM Squared is an enticing alternative for customers looking for a simple solution during what is a somewhat uncertain time in the history of virtualization,” said Thomas Gilsenan, President of DZ Solutions, a reseller of hardware, software, cloud, and IT professional services.  “Their simple licensing and deployment mode–available either a-la-carte or as part of SoftIron HyperCloud–is an exciting addition to SoftIron’s robust true private cloud solution stack.”

“It was impressive when SoftIron set-up HyperCloud, the world’s first true private cloud, in Soho, London in just two hours,” said Jack Alaway, Managing Director and co-owner at VSPL.  “Now with VM Squared, their modern software-only virtualization product in market, VMware users have a viable offramp from vSphere while retaining their legacy hardware. And then when they are ready, an onward path to a fully integrated on premise cloud if that is their ultimate destination.”

“Many of our clients are evaluating options with respect to their VMware environments,” says Mark Matheson, CEO at Distributed Technology Group. “But they have no appetite for a long,

complex migration. SoftIron VM Squared installs in less than 30 minutes and offers a VMware migration tool to simplify transition. It is precisely what our clients are looking for.”

“‘Simple’ is the new black for Enterprise,” says Dirk Webbeler, CEO at Blue Technologies, a full-service IT provider in Germany . “VMware’s quarter-century-old interface is as complex as it gets. SoftIron’s VM Squared – with its true Private Cloud experience – is extremely simple, and our clients are responding enthusiastically.”

“SoftIron has a rich history of industry firsts, doing engineering the right way, designing from the top down,” said Cosimo Gianfreda, CEO at E4 Computer Engineering. “From the early ARM days when I first met SoftIron CEO Phil Straw, through to developing the world’s first true private cloud, HyperCloud. It comes as no surprise that SoftIron are pioneering again by offering a virtualization platform at a realistic and affordable price point that is easy to manage. We are continuously improving the quality of our services to our customers through innovation, constant research and investment in new technologies.”

For more information regarding VM Squared and to access a free trial, please visit: http://www.softiron.com/vmsquared/.