Virtual Iron Software (www.virtualiron.com), a provider of enterprise-class server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management software, today announced that XCalibre, (www.xcalibre.co.uk), a leading UK-based hosting service provider has selected its virtualization and software platform to create an advanced hosting infrastructure for its 9,000 plus residential, business and reseller customers. The software is helping XCalibre to increase service levels, simplify infrastructure management and reduce operational costs across its entire ISP infrastructure.

“Virtual Iron is the first server virtualization platform that could satisfy our requirements and it is now turning our vision for a flexible and dynamic IT infrastructure into reality,” said Tony Lucas, XCalibre Communications CEO. “We’re able to deploy Virtual Iron across our entire ISP infrastructure to increase service levels for both our internal and external customers.”

XCalibre has just released a limited Beta of its FlexiScale Platform, a new outsourced infrastructure service which many industry watchers expect to compete directly with Amazon’s EC2. The Virtual Iron solution is a key component of the FlexiScale offering.

XCalibre, one of the UK’s top 20 web hosting providers, serves more than 9,000 customers and offers both shared hosting and dedicated server environments. With Virtual Iron, it is increasing the flexibility and scalability of its hosting infrastructure while dramatically reducing its total cost of ownership. Virtual Iron’s advanced virtualization features enable XCalibre to fully automate the provisioning of new services for customers and its high availability and capacity management capabilities ensure reliability and security.

“Virtual Iron is a wall-to-wall virtualisation technology that is ideally suited for deployment across an entire ISP infrastructure,” said Dermot Reynolds, managing director at NewDatum, a U.K.-based virtualisation consultancy and Virtual Iron channel partner. “It combines a number of key features and capabilities including low cost, flexible scalability, the ability to manage your entire infrastructure from a single console screen, and ease of deployment.”

Virtual Iron provides production-ready server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management capabilities for unmodified Windows and Linux at one-fifth the cost of comparable alternatives. The platform combines an open source hypervisor with advanced virtualization services and sophisticated policy-based management. Virtual Iron enables users to takes full advantage of new hardware–assisted virtualization (Intel VT and AMD-V) on servers to deliver near native performance. The software also offers other enterprise-class capabilities such as large memory support (up to 96 GB), large SMP capabilities (up to 8 CPUs) and the ability to virtualize server platforms with up to 32 physical CPUs. Unlike other virtualization solutions, Virtual Iron requires no installation or management of software on physical servers, further simplifying installation and data center operations.

XCalibre is also leveraging VLAN support, now available in Virtual Iron’s recently released Version 3.6. VLAN support allows multiple networks to share a single network card securely. This is particularly important for hosted service providers like XCalibre, which hosts thousands of different customers in the same data center.

“XCalibre is taking full advantage of Virtual Iron’s policy-based management and automation capabilities to increase service levels across its entire infrastructure while reducing its operational costs,” said John C. Thibault, president and CEO of Virtual Iron. “The combination of Virtual Iron’s enterprise-class capabilities and outstanding price/value performance is perfectly suited to service providers like XCalibre that compete on their ability to provide highly reliable and cost-effective hosting services.”

About XCalibre Communications

XCalibre Communications Ltd has been delivering hosting solutions to the home, business and reseller markets since 1997. It is XCalibre’s approach to providing quality services and technical support that ensure our customers stay satisfied. The company offers a full and varied range of hosting services including: dedicated, managed and bespoke servers; server co-location; shared hosting; reseller accounts; domain registration; ftp hosting. For more information, visit http://www.xcalibre.co.uk.

About Virtual Iron Software, Inc.

Virtual Iron provides enterprise-class software for server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management at one-fifth the cost of comparable alternatives. Its solutions enable companies to dramatically reduce the complexity and cost of managing and operating their data center. Virtual Iron delivers advanced virtualization capabilities that exploit industry standards, open source economics and built-in hardware-assisted acceleration. It is available for free download at http://www.virtualiron.com/free. Organizations use Virtual Iron for server consolidation, rapid provisioning, business continuity, capacity management and virtual desktop infrastructure to deliver significant improvements in utilization, manageability and agility. The company is privately held and based in Lowell, Massachusetts. For more information, visit http://www.virtualiron.com or email info@virtualiron.com.