Not that I have heard of, but if you talk to your local storage vendor you could probably get a demo unit for a couple of weeks. That is what I did. We had a vendor ship us a stand alone avamar node, get it configured, and we ran it for a few weeks backing up 6 remote sites over 512KB links.

They were motivated enough at the possibility of a sale that they were glad to spend the time and resources to get a demo unit installed and running.

There is no simulator, but if you are friendly with EMC you may get ISO for RHEL3 and Avamar, do few tweaks and have it up and running on your own (in RAIN or in non RAIN configuration). I'm this week in Wien for installation, configuration and administration training and that is exactly what we did here. But having demo box is of course even better as you get real thing then.

we got two stand alone units sitting on the floor, EMC supposed to come out at the end of the month to install etc, but i wanted to load something in a VM to monkey around with. So there is an ISO for Avamar software ?

There is an ISO image of RHEL3 distribution they have (based with some EMC packages). On top of that you need avamar installation. This is available to trained people and EMC staff only I believe (as exact location is hidden thus only if link is given to you you get it). With two units you will be able to play with "replication".

You mean this link?

ftp://avamar_ftp:anonymous@ftp.avamar.com/software/ave-HT_1.0-5.tar.gz

ftp://avamar_ftp:anonymous@ftp.avamar.com/software/ave-HT_1.0-5.tar.gz.md5sum

This is the complete AVE - avamar virtual edition - vmdk. You just bring it up and run the avw_install to prep avamar software. It's sized for .5TB of capacity which I'm sure is more than enough for testing. As it is a full installation you will need to get an eval key to get it up and running.

I suggest reading the ave install and admin guides that can be found on powerlink. Basically it's the same install steps as a standard installation.

Until recently our eval installation in the lab was running on vmware but I've dismantled it to prepare for an AVE install. I've lacked the time to get it up and running and would love to hear user experiences with this product.

Nope, I think we didn't do AVE... but we had ISO prepared for Avamar and then Avamar server itself. At least I think so as we could dl both of those from ftp. But yes, AVE should be fine too - I heard that one being mentioned too. I think I will give it a go next week or so.

In one of the trainings to my colleague, EMC has given a single server VM with Avamar ISO for dfemo purposes. Chekc if they have anything for you in your region.

AVE is giving me corrupted archive when downloaded...

You're correct. How unfortunate. I should have checked myself before sending the link. I've contacted EMC and asked them for another download location.

I should have done my homework. When asked EMC they did point out the vmdk is quite large.

"The OS/Application VMDK is contained within the package. The size varies depending on the edition.
The OS VMDK is sized at:
.5 TB ¿ 35 GB
1 TB ¿ 60 GB
After you import it, into your ESX environment, you then create the /data VMDK¿s. (3 for .5 and 6 for ). There are scripts inside the OS vmdk, that will partition and setup the /data partitions. "

So trying to unzip it on a small partition or a pc would not work.

Nope, in my case it was broken package (verified via md5). You need 4GB to unzip the package.

Simon,

will this image work in VMware workstation or do i have to install ESXi (it's free ..woohoo )

Thanks

I could be wrong, but I do not expect this to work in WKS - go with ESX.

The ftp link is not working.

How to get a virtual avamar simulator