Why is the origin of your virtualization software even important?

In the current sensitive geo-political environment people start to pay attention to where the products they use (or want to use) originate from. So, we get questions about that, which is understandable.

Since our products replace computer equipment that runs your business critical processes it is only logical that customers ensure themselves of not only the well functioning of that solution, but also about the reliability and protection against external malice (for example hacking).

To answer these kind of questions we have added this page.

Who and what is AVT?

Advanced Virtualization Technologies (or AVT in brief) is a company based in Western Europe, founded and populated by people from that region. We focus on the development and maintenance of hardware virtualization software to replace aging Alpha and VAX systems. Our software is developed in Western-Europe, free from any government oversight or interference.

What about software safety and protection?

When you look at our software build-up you can recognize different modules or layers.

• vtServer
  This is our Virtual Machine Manager/Hypervisor. It is the main system component that manages all the Virtual Alphas and VAXes that run in your environment. It also provides interfacing with the underlying host devices that are shared by all the different virtualized legacy hardware (e.g. network and storage). As a base we use the basic Linux kernel from kernel.org to ensure the highest level of compatibility with (existing and new) hardware and security. vtServer is developed, compiled and linked in-house at AVT ensuring the provided solution is clean and secure. It is a closed environment, not accessible or updateable by anyone outside the AVT engineering team.

• vtAlpha
  Virtualization of the Alpha computer architecture. It translates in real-time the Alpha CPU/IO operations to the underlying host system, ironing out all the architectural differences between the two worlds. A protected and encrypted solution, developed, compiled and linked in-house AVT, so completely safe and secure.

• vtVAX
  Virtualization of the VAX computer architecture. It translates in real-time the VAX CPU/IO operations to the underlying host system, ironing out all the architectural differences between the two worlds. Developed, compiled and linked by our partner Vere Technologies in the USA. Integration in the AVT environment is handled by the AVT engineering team. Therefore fully secure also.

• vtMonitor
  This is the main tool that you use to control all the virtual Alphas and VAXes in your organization. It can run in any web-browser of your choice and allows you to configure, maintain and run all the virtual Alpha and VAX machines you have. It runs in a secure environment for maximum protection. All interaction between vtMonitor, vtServer, vtAlpha and vtVAX are processed in encrypted format, barring any form of hacking or piggybacking of malicious intent.

• vtLicense
  Trimmed version of vtServer, aimed at running as a License Server, NFS Storage Server or vtCloud setup with encryption protection (or all of them).

Hardware virtualization only
The AVTware product processes the translation of Alpha and/or VAX instructions to the underlying host system (X86-architecture) and vice-versa. Everything in real-time ensuring the required performance levels. It has no access to the OpenVMS or Tru64 environment that runs on top of the virtual Alpha or VAX hardware, therefore no direct access to user data.

All our software is developed, tested and audited in-house. Communication between the different system components is encrypted and on a parameter pass-through method only to ensure the highest level of protection.
The AVT product does not allow/support third-party products to be installed on our vtServer Hypervisor to prevent any security breaches.

Feel free to contact us if you have additional questions about this subject.