Two political movements, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street (OWS), have been in the headlines lately. Although they come from very different corners of the political ring, they seem to share a perception that there’s a group of people, however defined, that have more than their fair share of power and influence.
They also have in common a debt to what the brilliant communications scholar Ithiel de Sola Pool called “the technologies of freedom.” When he wrote the seminal book by that name in 1983, that phrase referred to the printing press, radio, television, and the telephone, but he clearly foresaw the transformation of these technologies by the computer, a process he called “convergence.” Both the Tea Party and OWS (not to mention the Arab Spring and similar movements) would have been impossible without the new technologies of freedom that resulted from this convergence: email, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and the like, which enable those who can’t afford a printing press or a broadcast station to make their voices heard with a volume unlikely or impossible with earlier technologies.
What’s interesting to me is that the computing industry has its own “technology of freedom,” which has proved just as corrosive of vendor control as applications like Twitter have of political control. I’m talking about virtualization, a technique that pervades computing from top to bottom, forever abstracting function away from hardware into software. The abstraction furnished by communications protocols gave us the Internet, and helped blow up telecomm monopolies in the process. The abstraction of processors gave us server and desktop virtualization, making computing power a commodity and undermining the power of hardware vendors.
Now storage virtualization is eroding the power and influence of storage vendors. The 99%--the IT professionals down in the trenches suffering with the complications of managing a balkanized storage infrastructure—are fed up. They’re ready to throw their growing collection of storage devices into the harbor—any harbor. They’ve seen the promise of storage virtualization: better capacity management, better performance management, and better data protection management. But they don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to get these benefits across all their storage assets. After all, hypervisors like VMware, Hyper-V, and Xen work with any server hardware.
That’s why the “big iron” vendors haven’t been able to keep virtualization safely locked up in their disk arrays. The genie is out of the bottle with the rise of hardware-independent storage hypervisors like DataCore’s SANsymphony-V. A storage hypervisor unifying all your storage assets—from SANs to NAS boxes to SCSI disks orphaned by server virtualization consolidation—into an easily managed, high-performance virtual storage pool. By automating many of the tasks involved in efficient storage management, a storage hypervisor frees IT for more strategic operations and transforms storage from a business cost into a business advantage.
I’ll be looking at each of the management advantages a storage hypervisor delivers in posts to come, and outlining the business benefits they deliver: risk reduction, improved productivity, and cost containment.
For a head start on these topics, and more, please plan to attend a complimentary webcast on October 27, 2011 titled “The Storage Hypervisor: Taking Storage to the Next Level.” This webcast starts at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. Get to know DataCore – and take your storage to the next level. Register today.
Friday, 21 October 2011
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Jack Spencer Saves Big Bucks with DataCore SANsymphony-V; CIO of American Society Health-System Pharmacists
http://virtualizationreview.com/blogs/the-hoard-facts/2011/10/jack-spencer-datacore-san-symphony-v.aspx
Spencer's IBM storage was failing, but DataCore came to the rescue and saved him some money in the process.
Jack Spencer is VP of operations and CIO of the non-profit American Society Health-System Pharmacists. Last Fall, his IBM Fast T 700 storage server, which had been in place for about five years and upgraded numerous times, started to fail during the registration period of one of the organization's national meetings that produce a large portion of its yearly operating budget.
"We had a lot of pain with IBM trying to get something done with that, and of course it turned into more of a sales call than any kind of a support thing, so it came to the point where we knew there had to be a better way," Spencer said.
Fortunately, he was able to stabilize the Fast T 700--which had a controller that was failing and several bad drives that were being masked by the controller's symptoms--it could complete the meeting's registration duties. He then immediately went to work on crafting a new system, which involved implementing a SANsymphony-V storage virtualization software system that used HP EVA disk arrays. DataCore refers to SANsymphony as a "storage hypervisor."
Even though his new storage configuration was up and running, Spencer didn't want to throw out the Fast T 700 because it was still usable, and DataCore told him he could put that plus some Dell MD series disk arrays behind SANsymphony-V.
"DataCore gave me a solution that allowed me to keep all those resources, and not get them out of the architecture, but still use them, maybe not in production, but in a test environment," he said. "So now we don't see the new system as an individual piece of equipment that has storage--we just see storage, and I'll tell you, the training curve for my LAN crew who manages that has decreased by 80 percent at least."
...ROI-wise, Spencer said he saved between $50,000 and $100,000 alone by being able to keep using his legacy storage systems. He claimed to have saved another $20,000 to $30,000 by slashing his training requirements.
Does he go along with the "storage hypervisor" characterization of SAN Symphony-V?
"Oh absolutely. I can go out and look at whatever storage I want and just throw it in behind," he stated. "It's pretty straight-forward, pretty simple, and pretty elegant.
Spencer's IBM storage was failing, but DataCore came to the rescue and saved him some money in the process.
Jack Spencer is VP of operations and CIO of the non-profit American Society Health-System Pharmacists. Last Fall, his IBM Fast T 700 storage server, which had been in place for about five years and upgraded numerous times, started to fail during the registration period of one of the organization's national meetings that produce a large portion of its yearly operating budget.
"We had a lot of pain with IBM trying to get something done with that, and of course it turned into more of a sales call than any kind of a support thing, so it came to the point where we knew there had to be a better way," Spencer said.
Fortunately, he was able to stabilize the Fast T 700--which had a controller that was failing and several bad drives that were being masked by the controller's symptoms--it could complete the meeting's registration duties. He then immediately went to work on crafting a new system, which involved implementing a SANsymphony-V storage virtualization software system that used HP EVA disk arrays. DataCore refers to SANsymphony as a "storage hypervisor."
Even though his new storage configuration was up and running, Spencer didn't want to throw out the Fast T 700 because it was still usable, and DataCore told him he could put that plus some Dell MD series disk arrays behind SANsymphony-V.
"DataCore gave me a solution that allowed me to keep all those resources, and not get them out of the architecture, but still use them, maybe not in production, but in a test environment," he said. "So now we don't see the new system as an individual piece of equipment that has storage--we just see storage, and I'll tell you, the training curve for my LAN crew who manages that has decreased by 80 percent at least."
...ROI-wise, Spencer said he saved between $50,000 and $100,000 alone by being able to keep using his legacy storage systems. He claimed to have saved another $20,000 to $30,000 by slashing his training requirements.
Does he go along with the "storage hypervisor" characterization of SAN Symphony-V?
"Oh absolutely. I can go out and look at whatever storage I want and just throw it in behind," he stated. "It's pretty straight-forward, pretty simple, and pretty elegant.
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Stikeman Elliott Streamlined its Data with DataCore
ComputerWorld and IT World Canada: http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/stikeman-elliott-streamlined-its-data-with-datacore/144114
Using DataCore’s SANSymphony-V, corporate law firm Stikeman Elliott was able to re-purpose valuable storage devices and add new units into the chain without risking downtime
One of the things that Marco Magini, network and systems administrator for Montreal-based Stikeman Elliot LLC, worries most about where storage is concerned is downtime. At one of the largest corporate law firms in the world, it may come as a shock, but the cliché “time is money,” is no joke, Magini said.
“In terms of business continuity or flow, here, time is money, so data has to be available 24/7. I know everywhere it’s the same, but here, downtime costs a lot. When you do the math for the lawyers’ fee and the legal assistant and everything, we need to keep the data up and running all the time. No disruption at all,” he said.
After using a few bandaid fixes and constantly shopping for storage upgrades, Magini was introduced to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based DataCore Software by TH Consultants.
He’d looked at other products before, but the fact that DataCore was a software implementation with a real emphasis on interchangeability really sold him on it. He and the IT team found themselves asking, “why can’t we pull or stretch the actual hardware that we have (instead of constantly upgrading)? (That’s) why we love the DataCore product; it’s not manufacturer binded. You can throw any type of arrays or storage at it.”
George Teixeira, CEO of DataCore, said that this is one of the key principles his company is known for. “We started off pioneering a lot of the key things that are, today, taken for granted in the whole storage/virtualization space; things like thin provisioning and so forth. The difference is we’ve always done it in software and it’s software that allows hardware interchangeability.”
Teixeira said that DataCore is well positioned because storage isn’t something you can mess around with. You need to utilize whatever you have to keep budgets and downtime from spinning out of control. “As time goes on, people are using different kinds of storage depending on what they need and the cost for these things differ dramatically and the performance differs dramatically. One of the big advantages of DataCore is it’s software that works across all of these,” he said.
He also said it uses “auto-tiering” to intelligently move data between devices by cost and availability. “What (auto-tiering) does is allow you to have a mix of any kind of these purpose-built devices that you already have in your sight or add new ones and we will move the data to where it makes the most economic and pricepoint for your needs.”
Besides this unique take on interchangeability, Magini said his satisfaction in the transition to DataCore’s SANSymphony-V Hypervisor came from the added benefits he hadn’t considered before implementation. “This is a little jewel. Not only does it answer our backup issue, but we can move forward with our disaster recovery and especially high availability.”
Using DataCore’s SANSymphony-V, corporate law firm Stikeman Elliott was able to re-purpose valuable storage devices and add new units into the chain without risking downtime
One of the things that Marco Magini, network and systems administrator for Montreal-based Stikeman Elliot LLC, worries most about where storage is concerned is downtime. At one of the largest corporate law firms in the world, it may come as a shock, but the cliché “time is money,” is no joke, Magini said.
“In terms of business continuity or flow, here, time is money, so data has to be available 24/7. I know everywhere it’s the same, but here, downtime costs a lot. When you do the math for the lawyers’ fee and the legal assistant and everything, we need to keep the data up and running all the time. No disruption at all,” he said.
After using a few bandaid fixes and constantly shopping for storage upgrades, Magini was introduced to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based DataCore Software by TH Consultants.
He’d looked at other products before, but the fact that DataCore was a software implementation with a real emphasis on interchangeability really sold him on it. He and the IT team found themselves asking, “why can’t we pull or stretch the actual hardware that we have (instead of constantly upgrading)? (That’s) why we love the DataCore product; it’s not manufacturer binded. You can throw any type of arrays or storage at it.”
George Teixeira, CEO of DataCore, said that this is one of the key principles his company is known for. “We started off pioneering a lot of the key things that are, today, taken for granted in the whole storage/virtualization space; things like thin provisioning and so forth. The difference is we’ve always done it in software and it’s software that allows hardware interchangeability.”
Teixeira said that DataCore is well positioned because storage isn’t something you can mess around with. You need to utilize whatever you have to keep budgets and downtime from spinning out of control. “As time goes on, people are using different kinds of storage depending on what they need and the cost for these things differ dramatically and the performance differs dramatically. One of the big advantages of DataCore is it’s software that works across all of these,” he said.
He also said it uses “auto-tiering” to intelligently move data between devices by cost and availability. “What (auto-tiering) does is allow you to have a mix of any kind of these purpose-built devices that you already have in your sight or add new ones and we will move the data to where it makes the most economic and pricepoint for your needs.”
Besides this unique take on interchangeability, Magini said his satisfaction in the transition to DataCore’s SANSymphony-V Hypervisor came from the added benefits he hadn’t considered before implementation. “This is a little jewel. Not only does it answer our backup issue, but we can move forward with our disaster recovery and especially high availability.”
Friday, 14 October 2011
My Kingdom for a Storage Hypervisor!... The Latest Woes of Research in Motion (RIM)
The old saying “for want of a nail a kingdom was lost” comes to mind while watching the latest woes of Research in Motion (RIM) and their consumer-focused Blackberry Internet Services (BIS), which apparently went down twice this week. Consumers in EMEA and South America were particularly hard hit, and the outages spread to North America. Early reports indicate that the first outage, at least, may have originated in the company’s data center in Slough, England—network carriers are denying any responsibility.
These outages come less than a month after the company’s stock hit a five-year low, due to investor worries about competition from Apple and Android phones and other concerns. Since consumers aren’t subject to the same lock-in pressures as corporations who have adopted the Blackberry Enterprise Server, this outage could well prompt more consumers to switch, especially with the introduction of the iPhone 4s.
Obviously, until RIM comes clean on the cause of these outages, we can only speculate about how they could have been prevented. But if preliminary reports of them being server-related are true, our customers’ experience suggests that a storage hypervisor might have helped. Storage is the foundation of server operations, so high-availability storage is a must-have for utterly-reliable operation. A storage hypervisor such as DataCore SANsymphony-V can create an easily-provisioned virtual pool of storage that is replicated both synchronously, for immediate, no-interruption failover, and, if desired, asynchronously, for disaster recovery. No change is required to the application servers, making a storage hypervisor an easy and cost-effective way to prevent outages.
For instance, the Ports of Auckland, through which passes 13% of New Zealand’s GDP and almost 40% of its container trade, depends on SANsympony-V to support cargo handling and logistics services on a 24x7, 365-day-a-year basis. As Lead Systems Engineer Craig Beetlestone notes, DataCore let the Ports of Auckland “design out the panic” so that while the port may run 24X7, IT doesn’t have to. “We can suffer a complete site failure and have the systems carry on running without any manual intervention, which is a huge benefit for us,” he says. “Our return to operation is literally only minutes.”
How many customers could RIM have retained if the recent outages had been only minutes? And, would nervous investors even have noticed? The costs of these outages will be nearly incalculable, but one thing seems sure: if a storage hypervisor could have prevented them, it would have paid for itself the moment it was turned on.
These outages come less than a month after the company’s stock hit a five-year low, due to investor worries about competition from Apple and Android phones and other concerns. Since consumers aren’t subject to the same lock-in pressures as corporations who have adopted the Blackberry Enterprise Server, this outage could well prompt more consumers to switch, especially with the introduction of the iPhone 4s.
Obviously, until RIM comes clean on the cause of these outages, we can only speculate about how they could have been prevented. But if preliminary reports of them being server-related are true, our customers’ experience suggests that a storage hypervisor might have helped. Storage is the foundation of server operations, so high-availability storage is a must-have for utterly-reliable operation. A storage hypervisor such as DataCore SANsymphony-V can create an easily-provisioned virtual pool of storage that is replicated both synchronously, for immediate, no-interruption failover, and, if desired, asynchronously, for disaster recovery. No change is required to the application servers, making a storage hypervisor an easy and cost-effective way to prevent outages.
For instance, the Ports of Auckland, through which passes 13% of New Zealand’s GDP and almost 40% of its container trade, depends on SANsympony-V to support cargo handling and logistics services on a 24x7, 365-day-a-year basis. As Lead Systems Engineer Craig Beetlestone notes, DataCore let the Ports of Auckland “design out the panic” so that while the port may run 24X7, IT doesn’t have to. “We can suffer a complete site failure and have the systems carry on running without any manual intervention, which is a huge benefit for us,” he says. “Our return to operation is literally only minutes.”
How many customers could RIM have retained if the recent outages had been only minutes? And, would nervous investors even have noticed? The costs of these outages will be nearly incalculable, but one thing seems sure: if a storage hypervisor could have prevented them, it would have paid for itself the moment it was turned on.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
DataCore: Storage Virtualization for the Rest of Us
http://juku.it/en/articles/datacore-storage-virtualization-for-the-rest-of-us.html
I’ve been playing around with many storage platforms in the last ten years but I admittedly never had first hand experience with Datacore before now.
Datacore is a private company hailing from sunny Ft. Lauderdale, FL. They sport worldwide presence and 13 years in the competitive storage industry with more than 6000 customers.
Their sole product is called SANsymphony-V and it’s a software-based storage virtualization solution which runs on physical or virtual Windows Server 2008 R2 machines. The product can virtualize whatever storage is connected to itself (both direct attached or connected via SAN) and then export it using iSCSI, FC and FCoE.
SANsymphony-V approach to HA is an interesting one, they’re maintaining synchronous copies between nodes to guarantee high availability, with this approach you can separate the nodes as far as 100 KMs apart and still access them as a single entity (a scenario that vaguely resemble NetApp’s metrocluster)...
SANsymphony-V really struck my interest so I decided to give it a spin in our Juku lab.
During my tests I’ve put SANsymphony-V under stress in two different scenarios: physical (with async replication to virtual) and fully virtual (on vSphere 5 beta), I used both direct attached storage (local disks on Dell servers) and SAN attached storage (running on a trusty HDS AMS500 connected via FC to a Brocade fabric) as backend and VMware ESXi5 servers as clients.
The tests were performed with IOmeter inside virtual machines and performances were consistent across all the tests performed, the aggressive caching that Datacore provides (up to 1TB per node can be used for caching purposes) pushed IOps up to 4x in the tests performed (comparing SANsymphony-V performance against the native backend storage) a metric that is definitely interesting if your workload is cache friendly, especially because Datacore uses standard server RAM as caching platform that is usually cheaper than purpose-built cache modules for storage arrays.
...The product is solid, during my tests I had no issue whatsoever with the Datacore software: no install shenanigans, no strange quirks and no unexpected behaviors, everything went as smooth as it can get and performance were always consistent, even when Datacore nodes were virtualized under VMware.
...Even if I’m not too fond of Windows as a storage platform (even if EMC proved me wrong) I must admit that if the storage layer is solid you can achieve great results, as it’s the case with Datacore and even if I’d really like to see the products bundled with a stripped-down version of Windows server (to maximize physical resource utilization) if you’re in the market for a good software-based storage virtualization solution, Datacore is definitely something to put on your shortlist.
I’ve been playing around with many storage platforms in the last ten years but I admittedly never had first hand experience with Datacore before now.
Datacore is a private company hailing from sunny Ft. Lauderdale, FL. They sport worldwide presence and 13 years in the competitive storage industry with more than 6000 customers.
Their sole product is called SANsymphony-V and it’s a software-based storage virtualization solution which runs on physical or virtual Windows Server 2008 R2 machines. The product can virtualize whatever storage is connected to itself (both direct attached or connected via SAN) and then export it using iSCSI, FC and FCoE.
SANsymphony-V approach to HA is an interesting one, they’re maintaining synchronous copies between nodes to guarantee high availability, with this approach you can separate the nodes as far as 100 KMs apart and still access them as a single entity (a scenario that vaguely resemble NetApp’s metrocluster)...
SANsymphony-V really struck my interest so I decided to give it a spin in our Juku lab.
During my tests I’ve put SANsymphony-V under stress in two different scenarios: physical (with async replication to virtual) and fully virtual (on vSphere 5 beta), I used both direct attached storage (local disks on Dell servers) and SAN attached storage (running on a trusty HDS AMS500 connected via FC to a Brocade fabric) as backend and VMware ESXi5 servers as clients.
The tests were performed with IOmeter inside virtual machines and performances were consistent across all the tests performed, the aggressive caching that Datacore provides (up to 1TB per node can be used for caching purposes) pushed IOps up to 4x in the tests performed (comparing SANsymphony-V performance against the native backend storage) a metric that is definitely interesting if your workload is cache friendly, especially because Datacore uses standard server RAM as caching platform that is usually cheaper than purpose-built cache modules for storage arrays.
...The product is solid, during my tests I had no issue whatsoever with the Datacore software: no install shenanigans, no strange quirks and no unexpected behaviors, everything went as smooth as it can get and performance were always consistent, even when Datacore nodes were virtualized under VMware.
...Even if I’m not too fond of Windows as a storage platform (even if EMC proved me wrong) I must admit that if the storage layer is solid you can achieve great results, as it’s the case with Datacore and even if I’d really like to see the products bundled with a stripped-down version of Windows server (to maximize physical resource utilization) if you’re in the market for a good software-based storage virtualization solution, Datacore is definitely something to put on your shortlist.
Monday, 10 October 2011
Cloud Storage Partnership: DataCore and TwinStrata
http://www.mspmentor.net/2011/10/05/cloud-storage-patnership-datacore-and-twinstrata/
DataCore Software and TwinStrata are connecting the dots between storage virtualization and cloud storage. Specifically, DataCore’s storage virtualization software will now come bundled with a free TwinStrata CloudArray virtual appliance. How do managed service providers potentially benifit? Here are some thoughts.
The new solution allows enterprises to optimize their on-site data and leverage a pay-as-you-go storage center in a cloud environment, the companies say. DataCore and TwinStrata have been strategic partners for a number of years, according to DataCore Director of Product Marketing Augie Gonzalez. And according to DataCore President, CEO and Co-Founder George Teixeira, the partnership with TwinStrata is really the secondary news here.
“This announcement is not so much about TwinStrata. The bigger picture is that DataCore has been focused on managing and tiering diverse devices,” explained Teixeira. “We are allowing the consumer to have hardware interchangeability. And on a higher level, our architecture lets you get the most out of each level and get better performance out of any device.”
According to Teixeira, the DataCore-TwinStrata solution will “feel” like you’re using on-premise iSCSI disks. But the storage will actually occur in a cloud provider of their choice. That means less critical tiered storage, data backups and archives that can grow on pay-as-you-go-tiers and savings when it comes to space, power, cooling, and ultimately, money, the companies claim.
“Our auto-tiering function lets you promote or demote the storage or data to whatever makes sense economically or whatever meets storage needs,” Teixeira continued. “The one thing that was missing was a low cost storage from a cloud provider that you can get pretty simply today as a pay-as-you-go storage model. So we’ve added a function.”
According to Gonzalez, DataCore reviewed more than 100 different cloud solutions on the market before deciding on TwinStrata’s CloudArray. “They have an outstanding engineering and support staff,” Gonzalez said. “MSPs are trying to offer a complete on-premise and off-premise cloud model. To do that today, they would have to go to a fragmented approach. We are bringing to market a uniform way to do this.”
DataCore Software and TwinStrata are connecting the dots between storage virtualization and cloud storage. Specifically, DataCore’s storage virtualization software will now come bundled with a free TwinStrata CloudArray virtual appliance. How do managed service providers potentially benifit? Here are some thoughts.
The new solution allows enterprises to optimize their on-site data and leverage a pay-as-you-go storage center in a cloud environment, the companies say. DataCore and TwinStrata have been strategic partners for a number of years, according to DataCore Director of Product Marketing Augie Gonzalez. And according to DataCore President, CEO and Co-Founder George Teixeira, the partnership with TwinStrata is really the secondary news here.
“This announcement is not so much about TwinStrata. The bigger picture is that DataCore has been focused on managing and tiering diverse devices,” explained Teixeira. “We are allowing the consumer to have hardware interchangeability. And on a higher level, our architecture lets you get the most out of each level and get better performance out of any device.”
According to Teixeira, the DataCore-TwinStrata solution will “feel” like you’re using on-premise iSCSI disks. But the storage will actually occur in a cloud provider of their choice. That means less critical tiered storage, data backups and archives that can grow on pay-as-you-go-tiers and savings when it comes to space, power, cooling, and ultimately, money, the companies claim.
“Our auto-tiering function lets you promote or demote the storage or data to whatever makes sense economically or whatever meets storage needs,” Teixeira continued. “The one thing that was missing was a low cost storage from a cloud provider that you can get pretty simply today as a pay-as-you-go storage model. So we’ve added a function.”
According to Gonzalez, DataCore reviewed more than 100 different cloud solutions on the market before deciding on TwinStrata’s CloudArray. “They have an outstanding engineering and support staff,” Gonzalez said. “MSPs are trying to offer a complete on-premise and off-premise cloud model. To do that today, they would have to go to a fragmented approach. We are bringing to market a uniform way to do this.”
Saturday, 8 October 2011
The Boss Just Asked Me – “Why aren't we using Cloud Storage?”
The US government (the big boss) has enacted a 'Cloud First' policy, which is easy to state but has proven more difficult to do. Likewise CIOs (IT bosses) and businesses of all types are dealing with the challenge of how to effectively use “pay to go” Cloud capabilities to save money and improve productivity.
One especially critical pain point in IT is the growth of storing data and its cost (upfront capital expenditures, space, power, cooling, maintenance, etc.). IT managers who have too much work and too little time are being forced to look for new ways to get the most out of their on-premise storage assets while exploring ways to integrate new Cloud models. The bosses want more...
What to do? Recently, Gartner Group’s Gene Ruth, Research Director and Senior Storage Analyst, published a set of key findings and recommendations on Cloud storage in a recent report titled: Use heterogeneous storage virtualization as a bridge to the cloud. The opening page to the report makes an interesting statement: “Moving a storage infrastructure into a cloud paradigm can be a struggle for data center operators. The use of a heterogeneous storage virtualization solution provides a transition path that preserves investments and adds cloud operating semantics."
Storage virtualization and bridges all sound good, but how can we do it practically is the real question?
The simple answer to the question being asked is…it has to be easy, non-disruptive to operations and cost-effective. DataCore just announced it has extended its storage hypervisor tiering to Cloud storage and of course we believe the combination of storage virtualization and a Cloud gateway makes for a practical and compelling answer. The solution empowers users to manage, offload and augment on-premise storage environments with space and power saving storage located in the cloud.
For more background on the issue, the article in Cloud Computing by Nicos Vekiarides, a real Cloud expert, is a good read and does a good job of outlining how storage virtualization software, smart management to tier storage, and a seamless Cloud gateway can let companies gain the advantages of Cloud storage. You can read the full article here –
Cloud Computing: Combining Storage Virtualization with Unprecedented Cloud Storage Flexibility
The business case for storage virtualization software isn’t new. System administrators have always sought best-of-breed data storage from a choice of storage vendors and a centralized management framework. However, the business case for storage virtualization is currently even more profound for several key reasons.
Read the full article.
One especially critical pain point in IT is the growth of storing data and its cost (upfront capital expenditures, space, power, cooling, maintenance, etc.). IT managers who have too much work and too little time are being forced to look for new ways to get the most out of their on-premise storage assets while exploring ways to integrate new Cloud models. The bosses want more...
What to do? Recently, Gartner Group’s Gene Ruth, Research Director and Senior Storage Analyst, published a set of key findings and recommendations on Cloud storage in a recent report titled: Use heterogeneous storage virtualization as a bridge to the cloud. The opening page to the report makes an interesting statement: “Moving a storage infrastructure into a cloud paradigm can be a struggle for data center operators. The use of a heterogeneous storage virtualization solution provides a transition path that preserves investments and adds cloud operating semantics."
Storage virtualization and bridges all sound good, but how can we do it practically is the real question?
The simple answer to the question being asked is…it has to be easy, non-disruptive to operations and cost-effective. DataCore just announced it has extended its storage hypervisor tiering to Cloud storage and of course we believe the combination of storage virtualization and a Cloud gateway makes for a practical and compelling answer. The solution empowers users to manage, offload and augment on-premise storage environments with space and power saving storage located in the cloud.
For more background on the issue, the article in Cloud Computing by Nicos Vekiarides, a real Cloud expert, is a good read and does a good job of outlining how storage virtualization software, smart management to tier storage, and a seamless Cloud gateway can let companies gain the advantages of Cloud storage. You can read the full article here –
Cloud Computing: Combining Storage Virtualization with Unprecedented Cloud Storage Flexibility
The business case for storage virtualization software isn’t new. System administrators have always sought best-of-breed data storage from a choice of storage vendors and a centralized management framework. However, the business case for storage virtualization is currently even more profound for several key reasons.
- Now, with a variety of data storage devices available today, ranging from high-performance SSD and Flash cards to low-cost SATA arrays, a seamless way to automatically tier data across the diversity of storage devices and purpose-built arrays can maximize utilization and cost-efficiency.
- Moreover, hardware interchangeability and auto-tiering empower consumers with greater cost controls and buying power.
- In addition, there are numerous benefits to an enterprise-class software stack that includes data replication and disaster recovery in a footprint that persists across storage system upgrades – with no need to ever change data management interfaces and policies.
Read the full article.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
More Coverage on DataCore Extends Storage Hypervisor Tiering to Cloud Storage
Combining Storage Virtualization with Unprecedented Cloud Storage Flexibility
http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/2007782
The business case for storage virtualization software isn’t new. System administrators have always sought best of breed data storage from a choice of storage vendors and a centralized management framework. With a variety of data storage devices available today, ranging from high-performance SSD and Flash cards to low-cost SATA arrays, a seamless way to automatically tier data across the diversity of storage devices and purpose-built arrays can maximize utilization and cost-efficiency. Hardware interchangeability and auto-tiering empower consumers with greater cost controls and buying power. In addition, there are numerous benefits to an enterprise-class software stack that includes data replication and disaster recovery in a footprint that persists across storage system upgrades, with no need to ever change data management interfaces and policies.
DataCore SANsymphony-V is offered by the pioneer and established leader in the storage virtualization segment and is the industry’s first storage hypervisor that provides all of the above benefits and much more. This week, DataCore’s storage virtualization software added the flexibility of Cloud Storage to its list of features with the announcement that every copy of SANsymphony-V now bundles a TwinStrata Cloudarray virtual appliance. The combination enables companies to achieve true ‘open market’ buying power across their portfolio of storage investments; TwinStrata extends the cost-saving value propostion to a broad and impressive selection of public and private cloud storage providers. Read More...
InfoStor:DataCore Extends SANsymphony-V to the Cloud
http://www.infostor.com/backup-and_recovery/cloud-storage/datacore-extends-sansymphony-v-to-the-cloud.html
DataCore Software announced Tuesday that it has enhanced its SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor product to enable users to store less-important data to be automatically in the cloud, leaving more space on local storage infrastructure for high-priority data.
SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor provides a comprehensive set of storage control and monitoring functions that provide a transparent, virtual layer across consolidated disk pools.
It manages and optimizes different levels of storage, including memory, solid-state drives (SSD), and hard-disk drives (HDD) so that the most appropriate data is stored in the most appropriate tiers -- and now SANsymphony-V also works with cloud storage tiers, according to DataCore.
"Basically, DataCore's SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor has a function called auto-tiering which can set and prioritize data storage tiers ... "The problem, until now, [has been the lack of] the ease in doing this and storage costs ... The cloud is an ideal option because of its low storage costs"...
Enterprise Systems: DataCore Extends Storage Hypervisor Tiering to Cloud Storage
http://esj.com/articles/2011/10/04/datacore-storage-hypervisor.aspx
Architecture manages, optimizes tiers of storage; provides cloud gateway for backup, archive, and low-cost, off-premise tiered cloud storage.
DataCore Software has extended its storage hypervisor architecture with functionality that empowers enterprise customers to optimize the utilization and performance of their on-site assets and take full advantage of low cost, virtually unlimited “pay-as-you-go” storage in the cloud. The DataCore SANsymphony -V storage hypervisor now integrates seamlessly with the CloudArray cloud storage gateway from TwinStrata, a cloud-based data storage provider, allowing a simple, transparent, and cost-effective way to manage, offload, and augment on-premise storage environments with space- and power-saving storage located in the cloud.
Computer Technology Review: DataCore extends storage hypervisor tiering to provide enterprises with cloud storage
http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13750:datacore-extends-storage-hypervisor-tiering-to-provide-enterprises-with-cloud-storage&catid=320:breaking-news&Itemid=2701739
WebHost: Storage Virtualization Provider DataCore Adds TwinStrata CloudArray to Software Package
http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/100411_Storage_Virtualization_Provider_DataCore_Adds_TwinStrata_CloudArray_to_Software_Package
“SANsymphony-V was designed to help customers get the maximum performance, availability and utilization from the storage devices in their data centers,” Carlos Carreras, VP of alliances at DataCore said in a statement. “By bundling the TwinStrata CloudArray appliance with our SANsymphony-V, we give our customers even more flexibility and greater cost control by enabling them to include cloud storage in their virtual storage architecture.”
According to the press release, the bundle includes 1TB TwinStrata Cloud Array Virtual Appliance (a $2995 value), data compression/deduplication, at-rest/in-flight encryption, snapshotting, disaster recovery, bandwidth optimization and scheduling and choice of cloud service providers.
The package is also upgradable to handle perabytes of data and includes 30 days free cloud storage.
SNSeurope: TwinStrata and DataCore deliver industry-first storage virtualization to incorporate Cloud storage
DataCore, the premier provider of storage virtualization software, is bundling a free, one-terabyte TwinStrata CloudArray virtual appliance with the DataCore SANsymphony™-V storage hypervisor software to provide a fast and secure way for organizations to scale their storage infrastructure more cost effectively using cloud storage.
http://www.snseurope.com/news_full.php?id=19700
“TwinStrata and DataCore are making it possible for users to easily include cloud storage as a transparent extension of their existing data center storage environment,” said Terri McClure, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “This gives companies greater control over storage performance and helps control costs by making it easy to tier their storage across the absolute widest range of resources, from high-performance SSD arrays and legacy disk arrays, to scalable, cost-effective cloud storage.”
ChannelEMEA: DataCore provides seamless access to cost effective Cloud Storage
DataCore’s SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor is unique in its ability to provide an architecture that manages, optimises and spans all the different price-points and performance levels of electronic and mechanical storage, including electronic memory, SSDs, disk devices and cloud storage tiers. Amongst its comprehensive features is advanced automated tiering of disks. This option automatically relocates disk blocks among pools of different storage devices, keeping demanding workloads operating at peak speeds. Less critical and infrequently accessed disk blocks naturally gravitate towards lower cost disks.
With the transparent integration of CloudArray, DataCore customers use what they believe are on-premise iSCSI disks whose contents are located remotely on a cloud storage provider of their choice. This allows less critical tiered storage, backups and archive data to be cost-effectively placed in cloud storage that can grow almost limitlessly and with pay-as-you-go tiers, while offering additional savings in space, power and cooling.
Additional features include:
Seamless integration between Cloud Array and SANsymphony-V in minutes;
Easily downloadable virtual software appliance;
Data deduplication and compression;
Data backup and recovery - on-site, off-site or in the cloud;
Secure AES 256-bit advanced encryption standard for both at-rest and in-flight data protection;
Disk caching to boost performance and enhance speed-matching to off-site cloud storage;
Bandwidth optimisation and scheduling controls;
Snapshotting;
and Choice of cloud storage providers, including such leaders as Amazon Web Services, AT&T Synaptic Storage, Windstream Hosted Solutions, PEER 1 Hosting, Nirvanix and OpenStack.
Blog Posts:
Combining Storage Virtualization with Unprecedented Cloud Storage Flexibility
DataCore Extends Storage Hypervisor Tiering to Provide Enterprises With Seamless Access to Cost Effective Cloud Storage
DataCore adds support for cloud as storage tier
http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/2007782
The business case for storage virtualization software isn’t new. System administrators have always sought best of breed data storage from a choice of storage vendors and a centralized management framework. With a variety of data storage devices available today, ranging from high-performance SSD and Flash cards to low-cost SATA arrays, a seamless way to automatically tier data across the diversity of storage devices and purpose-built arrays can maximize utilization and cost-efficiency. Hardware interchangeability and auto-tiering empower consumers with greater cost controls and buying power. In addition, there are numerous benefits to an enterprise-class software stack that includes data replication and disaster recovery in a footprint that persists across storage system upgrades, with no need to ever change data management interfaces and policies.
DataCore SANsymphony-V is offered by the pioneer and established leader in the storage virtualization segment and is the industry’s first storage hypervisor that provides all of the above benefits and much more. This week, DataCore’s storage virtualization software added the flexibility of Cloud Storage to its list of features with the announcement that every copy of SANsymphony-V now bundles a TwinStrata Cloudarray virtual appliance. The combination enables companies to achieve true ‘open market’ buying power across their portfolio of storage investments; TwinStrata extends the cost-saving value propostion to a broad and impressive selection of public and private cloud storage providers. Read More...
InfoStor:DataCore Extends SANsymphony-V to the Cloud
http://www.infostor.com/backup-and_recovery/cloud-storage/datacore-extends-sansymphony-v-to-the-cloud.html
DataCore Software announced Tuesday that it has enhanced its SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor product to enable users to store less-important data to be automatically in the cloud, leaving more space on local storage infrastructure for high-priority data.
SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor provides a comprehensive set of storage control and monitoring functions that provide a transparent, virtual layer across consolidated disk pools.
It manages and optimizes different levels of storage, including memory, solid-state drives (SSD), and hard-disk drives (HDD) so that the most appropriate data is stored in the most appropriate tiers -- and now SANsymphony-V also works with cloud storage tiers, according to DataCore.
"Basically, DataCore's SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor has a function called auto-tiering which can set and prioritize data storage tiers ... "The problem, until now, [has been the lack of] the ease in doing this and storage costs ... The cloud is an ideal option because of its low storage costs"...
Enterprise Systems: DataCore Extends Storage Hypervisor Tiering to Cloud Storage
http://esj.com/articles/2011/10/04/datacore-storage-hypervisor.aspx
Architecture manages, optimizes tiers of storage; provides cloud gateway for backup, archive, and low-cost, off-premise tiered cloud storage.
DataCore Software has extended its storage hypervisor architecture with functionality that empowers enterprise customers to optimize the utilization and performance of their on-site assets and take full advantage of low cost, virtually unlimited “pay-as-you-go” storage in the cloud. The DataCore SANsymphony -V storage hypervisor now integrates seamlessly with the CloudArray cloud storage gateway from TwinStrata, a cloud-based data storage provider, allowing a simple, transparent, and cost-effective way to manage, offload, and augment on-premise storage environments with space- and power-saving storage located in the cloud.
Computer Technology Review: DataCore extends storage hypervisor tiering to provide enterprises with cloud storage
http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13750:datacore-extends-storage-hypervisor-tiering-to-provide-enterprises-with-cloud-storage&catid=320:breaking-news&Itemid=2701739
WebHost: Storage Virtualization Provider DataCore Adds TwinStrata CloudArray to Software Package
http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/100411_Storage_Virtualization_Provider_DataCore_Adds_TwinStrata_CloudArray_to_Software_Package
“SANsymphony-V was designed to help customers get the maximum performance, availability and utilization from the storage devices in their data centers,” Carlos Carreras, VP of alliances at DataCore said in a statement. “By bundling the TwinStrata CloudArray appliance with our SANsymphony-V, we give our customers even more flexibility and greater cost control by enabling them to include cloud storage in their virtual storage architecture.”
According to the press release, the bundle includes 1TB TwinStrata Cloud Array Virtual Appliance (a $2995 value), data compression/deduplication, at-rest/in-flight encryption, snapshotting, disaster recovery, bandwidth optimization and scheduling and choice of cloud service providers.
The package is also upgradable to handle perabytes of data and includes 30 days free cloud storage.
SNSeurope: TwinStrata and DataCore deliver industry-first storage virtualization to incorporate Cloud storage
DataCore, the premier provider of storage virtualization software, is bundling a free, one-terabyte TwinStrata CloudArray virtual appliance with the DataCore SANsymphony™-V storage hypervisor software to provide a fast and secure way for organizations to scale their storage infrastructure more cost effectively using cloud storage.
http://www.snseurope.com/news_full.php?id=19700
“TwinStrata and DataCore are making it possible for users to easily include cloud storage as a transparent extension of their existing data center storage environment,” said Terri McClure, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “This gives companies greater control over storage performance and helps control costs by making it easy to tier their storage across the absolute widest range of resources, from high-performance SSD arrays and legacy disk arrays, to scalable, cost-effective cloud storage.”
ChannelEMEA: DataCore provides seamless access to cost effective Cloud Storage
DataCore’s SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor is unique in its ability to provide an architecture that manages, optimises and spans all the different price-points and performance levels of electronic and mechanical storage, including electronic memory, SSDs, disk devices and cloud storage tiers. Amongst its comprehensive features is advanced automated tiering of disks. This option automatically relocates disk blocks among pools of different storage devices, keeping demanding workloads operating at peak speeds. Less critical and infrequently accessed disk blocks naturally gravitate towards lower cost disks.
With the transparent integration of CloudArray, DataCore customers use what they believe are on-premise iSCSI disks whose contents are located remotely on a cloud storage provider of their choice. This allows less critical tiered storage, backups and archive data to be cost-effectively placed in cloud storage that can grow almost limitlessly and with pay-as-you-go tiers, while offering additional savings in space, power and cooling.
Additional features include:
Seamless integration between Cloud Array and SANsymphony-V in minutes;
Easily downloadable virtual software appliance;
Data deduplication and compression;
Data backup and recovery - on-site, off-site or in the cloud;
Secure AES 256-bit advanced encryption standard for both at-rest and in-flight data protection;
Disk caching to boost performance and enhance speed-matching to off-site cloud storage;
Bandwidth optimisation and scheduling controls;
Snapshotting;
and Choice of cloud storage providers, including such leaders as Amazon Web Services, AT&T Synaptic Storage, Windstream Hosted Solutions, PEER 1 Hosting, Nirvanix and OpenStack.
Blog Posts:
Combining Storage Virtualization with Unprecedented Cloud Storage Flexibility
DataCore Extends Storage Hypervisor Tiering to Provide Enterprises With Seamless Access to Cost Effective Cloud Storage
DataCore adds support for cloud as storage tier
DataCore Extends Storage Hypervisor Tiering to Provide Enterprises With Seamless Access to Cost Effective Cloud Storage
http://www.enterprisecommunicate.com/datacore-extends-storage-hypervisor-tiering-to-provide-enterprises-with-seamless-access-to-cost-effective-cloud-storage/
Offers Comprehensive Architecture to Manage and Optimize All Tiers of Storage. Partnership with TwinStrata Integrates Cloud Gateway for Backup, Archive and Low Cost Off-Premise Tiered Cloud Storage.
DataCore Software today announced it has extended its storage hypervisor architecture with functionality that empowers enterprise customers to optimize the utilization and performance of their on-site assets and take full advantage of low cost, virtually unlimited ‘pay as you go’ storage in the cloud. The DataCore™SANsymphony™ -V storage hypervisor now integrates seamlessly with the CloudArray® cloud storage gateway from TwinStrata, the leading innovator of cloud-based data storage, allowing a simple, transparent and cost-effective way to manage, offload and augment on-premise storage environments with space and power saving storage located in the cloud.
“Moving a storage infrastructure into a cloud paradigm can be a struggle for data center operators. The use of a heterogeneous storage virtualization solution provides a transition path that preserves investments and adds cloud operating semantics,” said Gene Ruth, research director and senior storage analyst for Gartner. “This particular solution combines storage virtualization, tiering of diverse devices and a bridge capability, allowing organizations to choose and offload less critical storage, backup and archive data onto cloud storage providers.”
Offers Comprehensive Architecture to Manage and Optimize All Tiers of Storage. Partnership with TwinStrata Integrates Cloud Gateway for Backup, Archive and Low Cost Off-Premise Tiered Cloud Storage.
DataCore Software today announced it has extended its storage hypervisor architecture with functionality that empowers enterprise customers to optimize the utilization and performance of their on-site assets and take full advantage of low cost, virtually unlimited ‘pay as you go’ storage in the cloud. The DataCore™SANsymphony™ -V storage hypervisor now integrates seamlessly with the CloudArray® cloud storage gateway from TwinStrata, the leading innovator of cloud-based data storage, allowing a simple, transparent and cost-effective way to manage, offload and augment on-premise storage environments with space and power saving storage located in the cloud.
“Moving a storage infrastructure into a cloud paradigm can be a struggle for data center operators. The use of a heterogeneous storage virtualization solution provides a transition path that preserves investments and adds cloud operating semantics,” said Gene Ruth, research director and senior storage analyst for Gartner. “This particular solution combines storage virtualization, tiering of diverse devices and a bridge capability, allowing organizations to choose and offload less critical storage, backup and archive data onto cloud storage providers.”
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
TwinStrata and DataCore Deliver Industry-First Storage Virtualization Solution to Incorporate Cloud Storage
http://www.stockrants.com/2011/10/04/twinstrata-and-datacore-deliver-industry-first-storage-virtualization-solution-to-incorporate-cloud-storage.html
“TwinStrata and DataCore are making it possible for users to easily include cloud storage as a transparent extension of their existing data center storage environment,” said Terri McClure, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “This gives companies greater control over storage performance and helps control costs by making it easy to tier their storage across the absolute widest range of resources, from high-performance SSD arrays and legacy disk arrays, to scalable, cost-effective cloud storage.”
“SANsymphony-V was designed to help customers get the maximum performance, availability and utilization from the storage devices in their data centers,” said Carlos Carreras, VP of alliances at DataCore. “By bundling the TwinStrata CloudArray appliance with our SANsymphony-V, we give our customers even more flexibility and greater cost control by enabling them to include cloud storage in their virtual storage architecture.”
“DataCore storage virtualization software enables us to maximize storage pool resource utilization to ensure high performance and availability for our clients,” said Jason Schuerhoff, vice president of sales at Sublime Solution, a global IT reseller and services company specializing in virtualization solutions. “Using it with CloudArray to integrate cloud storage into the mix will enable us to create some exciting new storage configurations that further reduce costs and increase storage scalability for customers.”
“TwinStrata and DataCore are making it possible for users to easily include cloud storage as a transparent extension of their existing data center storage environment,” said Terri McClure, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “This gives companies greater control over storage performance and helps control costs by making it easy to tier their storage across the absolute widest range of resources, from high-performance SSD arrays and legacy disk arrays, to scalable, cost-effective cloud storage.”
“SANsymphony-V was designed to help customers get the maximum performance, availability and utilization from the storage devices in their data centers,” said Carlos Carreras, VP of alliances at DataCore. “By bundling the TwinStrata CloudArray appliance with our SANsymphony-V, we give our customers even more flexibility and greater cost control by enabling them to include cloud storage in their virtual storage architecture.”
“DataCore storage virtualization software enables us to maximize storage pool resource utilization to ensure high performance and availability for our clients,” said Jason Schuerhoff, vice president of sales at Sublime Solution, a global IT reseller and services company specializing in virtualization solutions. “Using it with CloudArray to integrate cloud storage into the mix will enable us to create some exciting new storage configurations that further reduce costs and increase storage scalability for customers.”
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