netBoot/i

Formerly from emBoot (acquired by Double-Take Software in July of 2008) netBoot/i allows a server to bootup from information residing on iSCSI storage. According to the vendor, the client machines require only a PXE-Enabled Ethernet adapter (and the client machines also must, of course, be hardware compatible with the operating system that they will boot into).

During setup, the machine's local boot volume is copied to the designated iSCSI storage area via a utility included with the product. When the client starts up, it requests a small bootstrap component from a special netBoot server, which additionally assigns a pre-defined iSCSI target to the requesting machine. The client machine can then boot directly from the boot information on the iSCSI target, or can copy the boot volume to the local disk and boot from there. When booting from the iSCSI storage itself, the vendor notes that a hard drive is not even necessary on the client machine. The vendor states that the products work with MS Sysprep to assist with image duplications; and Sysprep images themselves can be booted from iSCSI storage.

Other features include the ability to network boot to iSCSI from within VMware and MS Virtual PC machines, and the ability to boot multiple machines from a shared (read-only) boot volume.

netBoot/i allows for the booting up of multiple Windows and Linux operating systems, including Windows Server 2000/2003/2008, XP Pro, Vista Enterprise, 2000 Server, and 2000 Pro (32 and 64-bit); as well as SLES, OpenSUSE, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It leverages (and requires) the vendor's own iSCSI initiator. The netBoot/i Service runs on Windows Server 2000/2003/2008, 2000/XP Pro, Vista, and Linux (same as the clients).

New features in the latest release of netBoot/i include support for migrations across dis-similar hardware (including physical or virtual machines in any combination); enhanced client-side persistence, allowing changes made on booting devices to be stored locally or to the iSCSI target for recovery on the next boot; and the ability to assign multiple boot targets to a client (including user-selectable target options), among others.

Visit the vendor's site for further information.