Vision Shares Some 2012 Product Plans

May 22, 2012 Alex Woodie

Vision Solutions is a much different company than it was five years ago. Aside from running three major IBM i high availability software lines, Vision is also doing a brisk business with HA and DR software for Windows, Linux, and Unix servers thanks to its DoubleTake acquisition. Vision executives plotted out the rest of the year’s roadmap during the recent COMMON conference in Southern California.

Vision has already made one major HA announcement this year. In March it launched MIMIX Availability for IBM i version 7.1, which brought a boost to replication performance, especially for more complex environments. At the same time, it launched Double-Take for AIX version 4.0, which adopted the same GUI management console, called the Vision Solutions Portal (VSP), that’s used by the IBM i HA products.

Vision also had a small part to play in the big IBM PureSystems launch last month, as it was one of dozens of vendors who had software certified to run as a “pattern” on the new PureFlex server at launch day. Those patterns are basically integration points between the Vision management console and the IBM Flex System Manager (FSM), a rack-mounted management appliance that’s used to do what little administration a PureSystems server needs.

According to Alan Arnold, the chief technology office and executive vice president for the Irvine, California-based company, Vision used the Tivoli-based REST APIs in developing portlets that plug in to FSM. Currently Vision offers six FSM portlets, for MIMIX Availability, MIMIX Move, iOptimize, Double-Take Availability for Windows and Linux, and Double-Take RecoveryNow for AIX. Vision will develop and certify additional portlets in the future, Arnold says.

The second half of the year is almost upon us, and that means the release of iTERA Availability version 6.1, the first new release of the product in more than three years. If recent Vision announcements are any indication, you can expect to see performance enhancements, more automation, maybe an iTERA FSM portlet, and possibly a standard Vision UI, such as VSP management console.

The summer and fall months will also bring us a “major” cloud announcement from Vision, according to Vision vice president of product strategy Doug Piper. Vision has been hinting at getting into the cloud business for months. The company’s philosophy has always been to let business partners do the actual hosting. But with the explosion of interest in cloud solutions–not to mention the Live Partition Mobility (LPM) technology that became available in IBM i 7.1 TR4 last week–the time may be near for Vision to put its own stamp on the cloud.