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- November 5, 2010 — NETGEAR®, Inc., a global networking company that delivers innovative products to consumers, businesses and Internet service providers, today announced that business-class ReadyNAS® products are fully compliant with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 requirements, including interoperability between ReadyNAS and Microsoft Hyper-V. The “Certified for Windows Server 2008 R2” logo means businesses of all sizes can now use NETGEAR and Microsoft virtualization solutions to increase application reliability, consolidate servers, and lower costs without compatibility or support concerns.

Microsoft has certified NETGEAR’s ReadyNAS in the Windows Server Catalog after the product passed the comprehensive WinQual testing suite. Listing in the catalog specifically ensures compatibility between ReadyNAS network storage and Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V when using the iSCSI protocol.

“Smart IT departments demand reliable, affordable and simple solutions to support their businesses,” said Drew Meyer, senior director of product marketing at NETGEAR. “NETGEAR is already a market leader in affordable mid-market network storage and switching, so we are excited to partner with Microsoft in building reliable, simple SAN solutions.”

“The Microsoft virtualization business has seen tremendous growth in the last year, and mid-market customers are an important part of that growth,” said Jim Schwartz, director of Virtualization Solutions at Microsoft. “We rely on affordable network storage and switching solutions from partners like NETGEAR for continued Hyper-V success in this segment.”

NETGEAR ReadyNAS customer Aron Smetana, IT manager for Headlands Asset Management, used Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V with ReadyNAS 3200 to cut his rack space by 80 percent and consolidate more than 20 physical machines. “The embedded replication tool has provided disaster recovery for Headlands from a remote location in case of an emergency. This has proven to be an ideal solution given my budget and time constraints,” said Smetana.

According to a September 2010 survey from Spiceworks, 68 percent of IT professionals plan to be using virtualization by the end of the year. “Medium-sized enterprises and the channel partners that serve them are jumping at the chance to make applications more reliable. The affordable combination of NETGEAR and Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V make a simpler solution than ever before,” continued Meyer.