Monday 21 June 2010

DataCore Storage Virtualization and Citrix Xen

For more details: DataCore Storage Virtualization and Citrix Xen

'The virtual infrastructure that encompasses both server and storage virtualization has made my life easier for provisioning new servers and adding disk space,' comments Jeremy Hines, Manager of IS, Evans Fruit Company. 'And it is the total virtualized environment, spanning Citrix Xen and SANmelody that makes this possible.'

"Three Xen virtual hosts, meaning three physical servers, run all of the virtual machines. Two DataCore SANs running on SUN x4250s are physically separated, albeit in the same building, connected to each other via Ethernet. According to the IT staff, SANmelody makes it much easier to add storage to a machine, which is done by carving a new LUN (logical unit number) and then attaching it to the machine. Doing so immediately provides administrators with what amounts to a new hard drive, the size of which is easily increased. Notes Hines, 'You carve out a new LUN, copy the data, and then drop the old LUN. It is pretty straightforward. We really like that in terms of ease-of-use.'"

Full story: http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=14965

Wednesday 9 June 2010

Photos from Microsoft Tech-Ed 2010: DataCore Virtualization Software, Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft Cluster Servers

Customers showcased using both DataCore and Microsoft in virtualization infrastructures includes health network Continuum Health Partners (www.datacore.com/continuum ), floral distributor Northwest Wholesale Florists (www.datacore.com/NWF ), and law firm McNamee, Lochner, Titus & Williams (www.datacore.com/mcnamee ). These companies are but a small sample of the tens of thousands of organizations worldwide using DataCore virtualization solutions.
For more info: Microsoft Tech-Ed 2010: DataCore Virtualization Software Takes Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft Cluster Servers to the 3rd Dimension

Monday 7 June 2010

At Tech-Ed 2010 – Metro Clustering Using Microsoft and DataCore



At Tech-Ed 2010 – Metro Clustering Using Microsoft and DataCore
Onsite today in New Orleans at the DataCore booth (#442), executives from Continuum Health Partners (“Continuum”) will be present to describe how DataCore virtualization software has been deployed to manage storage across metro clusters at Continuum, whereby it affords multi-site data protection and failover. The Continuum representatives present will include IT Director Jill Wojcik and Interim CIO Mark Moroses.

Continuum, like many health networks, was faced with the challenge of making their diverse storage infrastructure available around the clock, across multiple locations. To meet this challenge, DataCore’s SANsymphony™ storage virtualization software is running as metro clusters at two hospitals that are part of the Continuum Health Partners network (Beth Israel Medical Center and Roosevelt Hospital in New York), ensuring business continuity and overcoming downtime and unavailability of data.

“DataCore storage virtualization software is the key to the virtualization puzzle – offering the flexible storage virtualization dimension needed for any virtualization project – and serving as the perfect complement to server virtualization as well as the perfect enhancement to storage hardware,” noted Jill Wojcik, IT Director, Continuum Health Partners.

The bottom-line for this customer is that DataCore makes metro clusters possible. DataCore software runs at each hospital and communicates with its mirrored counterpart at the central data center, where the rest of the organizations’ data is also stored. Either of these installations can automatically fail-over to the other “hot site.”

Microsoft solutions running on the DataCore virtualized infrastructure at Continuum include: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Cluster Servers (MSCSs). In total, DataCore SANsymphony software virtualizes and manages well over 200 TBs (collectively) for the various hospitals in the Continuum network. The environment supports a community of 14,000 users using over five-hundred (500) servers. For a more in-depth Case Study on this deployment, please visit: http://www.datacore.com/continuum .

FREE Whitepaper: Uninterrupted Access to Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs) Synchronously Mirrored Across Metropolitan Hot Sites
In this paper you will learn how DataCore Software solves a longstanding stumbling block to clustered systems spread across metropolitan sites by providing uninterrupted access to the CSV despite the many technical and environmental conditions that conspire to disrupt it. Go to – www.datacore.com/metroclusters .

Wednesday 2 June 2010

Serious about High-availability? Eliminate Storage-related Downtime, Not Just Hardware Device Failures

Storage Switzerland White Paper: http://www.datacore.com/downloads/SeriousHA.pdf
The economic downturn is no time to compromise on data availability, especially when storage virtualization software has made it possible to eliminate costly, storage-related downtime without paying a premium.

If you are serious about high availability, look for storage virtualization software that provides the ability to stretch the two mirrored locations, potentially several kilometers apart yet still present mirrored virtual disks to applications as if they were single, high-performance drives.