What is a Virtual Appliance?

Virtual appliances are pre-built, pre-configured, ready-to-run enterprise applications packaged with an operating system inside a virtual machine. Customers can easily install and deploy these pre-integrated solution stacks. This speeds up time to value and simplifies software development, distribution, and management.

What Virtual Machine does the CVA-50 utilize?

The CVA-50 utilizes the VMware Player.

What is VMware Player?

VMware Player is free software that enables users to easily run any virtual machine on a Windows or Linux PC. VMware Player runs virtual machines created by VMware Workstation, VMware Server, or VMware ESX Server and also supports Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats.

Do I need another VMware product to use VMware Player?

No. VMware Player enables you to run virtual machines created with another VMware product.

How does VMware Player work?

VMware Player installs like a standard desktop application. Once installed, VMware Player runs virtual machines in a separate window. VMware Player includes features that enable users to configure their machines for optimal performance as well as access host PC devices.

How can I get VMware Player?

VMware Player is available as a free download.

Where can I get more VMware Player information?

Get more information here.

What is the CVA-50?

The Covergence Virtual Appliance 50 (CVA-50) is an implementation of Covergence Session Manager (CSM) that is delivered as a virtual appliance. Delivering CSM as a virtual appliance allows us to support the broader range of platforms for our customers. Also it allows us to fit into the virtualization architecture that many large companies are adopting to reduce the costs and complexity of their IT infrastructure.

Will you still sell and support your traditional CXC hardware appliances?

Absolutely, the expansion of our product line to include virtual appliances is complementary to our core CXC business. A CXC appliance is a dedicated, optimized, high-performance server architecture that provides the most predictable performance characteristics possible. As a virtual appliance the CVA-50 can be one of several applications deployed on a shared hardware platform. Obviously sharing processor, memory and storage resources with other applications will add delay and delay variability that is not present in a dedicated CXC appliance. Since the quality of real-time traffic is greatly impacted by small amounts of delay, latency and jitter, the virtual appliance may not be the optimum choice for media-intense environments. In addition, there are some performance limitations innate to virtual appliances. The term "virtualization drag" is sometimes used to describe the inherent delays in switching between the OS of the virtual machine and the main "brain" of the server virtualization software called the hypervisor. “Virtualization drag” is also not a factor when using a dedicated CXC appliance.

Is the CVA-50 the right choice for me?

Taking performance into consideration, the virtual appliance approach is ideal as a solution for integrating branch offices or selling services to the SMB market.

What are the processor and memory requirements?