PHD Virtual Expands Global Reach; Announces United Kingdom/ EMEA Distribution Partnership with Ai Virtualisation

Ai Virtualisation Now Offers esXpress, the First VMware Backup Solution to Use the Virtual Infrastructure to Back Itself Up

MOUNT ARLINGTON, N.J. and BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, England, April 29 -- PHD Virtual Technologies, developer of the esXpress high availability data protection solution for VMware, and Ai Virtualisation, a leading virtualization solution distributor in the UK and EMEA, today announced a new partnership that calls for the distribution of esXpress throughout the UK and parts of EMEA. The new partnership is part of an aggressive international expansion effort for PHD Virtual as demand grows exponentially for data protection solutions for virtual enterprises.

"PHD Virtual uniquely delivers virtualized data protection for virtual solutions so that backups are smaller and faster optimizing both storage capacity and infrastructure performance," said Andy Irving, managing director, Ai Virtualisation. "We are delighted to add esXpress to our portfolio of best of breed solutions for the virtual enterprise and look forward to a growing partnership with PHD Virtual."

Ai Virtualisation provides true value added distribution in sales, service and logistics throughout the UK and EMEA. The IT distribution leader specializes in several virtualization areas including systems management, security and monitoring.

"esXpress has been architected to use the virtual infrastructure to back itself up, delivering the best price and performance for companies ranging from SMB's to the enterprise," said Joe Julian, executive chairman, PHD Virtual. "By using the virtual infrastructure to create a small VBA (Virtual Backup Appliance), esXpress backs up virtual machines in the most efficient way. This fundamentally unique architectural approach enables our partners to deliver the most scalable and cost effective data protection and recovery solution available."

As a new PHD Virtual distribution partner, Ai Virtualisation has joined PHD Virtual's Channel Xpress partner program which enables distribution partners and resellers to expand their virtual businesses to deliver the most innovative solutions to their customers. Channel Xpress is free to join and offers simple, success-based partner categories. In addition, Channel Xpress provides marketing support, dedicated pre-sales, post sales support, and in-depth training designed to embrace partners as an integral part of PHD Virtual's business growth and ongoing strategic evolution.

About esXpress

The award winning esXpress is the first VMware backup solution to use the virtual infrastructure to back itself up enabling backup of an entire virtual environment in less time and at a lower cost. esXpress performs complete image backups by creating Virtual Backup Appliances (VBA's), small virtual machines that are quickly deployed on an ESX server. With the ability to have up to 16 concurrent backups per host, esXpress's unique features empower precise tuning of your backups to best utilize resources. esXpress requires no additional hardware or software making it the most scalable and cost effective VMware backup solution on the market. To download a trial version of esXpress, please visit: www.phdvirtual.com/download-trial.

About PHD Virtual Technologies

The pioneer of Virtual Backup Appliances (VBAs), PHD Virtual Technologies has been transforming data protection for VMware since 2006. Its award-winning data protection solution, esXpress, is used today by more than 1,600 enterprises worldwide to achieve scalable, high availability and cost effective backup and restore solutions for VMware. In 2008, esXpress was named "Data Protection Product of the Year" by SearchServerVirtualization.com. PHD Virtual also provides a suite of free, virtualization utilities to assist with the administration and management of virtualized environments. PHD Virtual supports global resellers through its Channel Xpress partner program and is a proud VMware Technology Alliance Partner. For more information, please visit www.phdvirtual.com.

About Ai Virtualisation

Ai Virtualisation, (A Division of Ai Distribution) is a specialist IT Distributor focused on providing Award Winning, Best of Breed, Enterprise-class Management, Security and Performance solutions for Virtualisation environments.

Through our deep and thorough knowledge of technology, the Virtualisation market and working with our channel partners across our worldwide network, we help optimise the way organisations implement Virtualisation projects for Test and Development, Pre Production and Full Production. We provide the parts to Manage, Secure and Accelerate IT infrastructure based around VMware, CitrixXen, Microsoft (Hyper-V), Novell (XenSource), Sun and Oracle etc. For more information, please visit: www.aivirtualisation.com.