Read the full Case study:
http://www.datacore.com/Libraries/Case_Study_PDFs/Scottsdale_Community_College.sflb.ashx
DataCore Software Powers Scottsdale Community College’s Virtualized IT Environment
Complements Citrix XenDesktop to provide an end-to-end virtualization solution and an enhanced virtual desktop experience for approximately 12,000 students and 1,000 employees
http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12712:datacore-powers-scottsdale-community-colleges-virtualized-it-environment&catid=231:storage-software&Itemid=2701181
http://www.istockanalyst.com/business/news/5108185/datacore-software-powers-scottsdale-community-college-s-virtualized-it-environment
Scottsdale Community College (SCC) has deployed DataCore’s SANsymphony™ storage virtualization software in conjunction with XenDesktop from Citrix in order to realize a fully virtualized IT environment. The responsiveness of virtualized environments – and in particular – the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), is closely tied to the availability and performance of the underlying storage systems.
DataCore SANsymphony and Citrix run with server hardware from HP and storage hardware from Xiotech. Collectively, they power the mySCC (my Scottsdale Community College) virtualized environment. With mySCC’s virtualization strategy, Scottsdale Community College has significantly reduced the total costs of its IT operations by $250,000, while increasing the number of services offered and dramatically improving access to them through a richer, more powerful desktop interface. The full case study is available on DataCore’s website: Virtual Storage Infrastructure Designed for Virtual Desktops.
“DataCore front-ends our Xiotech storage arrays and improves I/O performance”
“DataCore front-ends our Xiotech storage arrays and improves I/O performance,” said Dustin Fennell, vice president of IT and CIO, Scottsdale Community College. “And next year, if we get a better hardware option in terms of price-performance – we can hang that behind DataCore too. By embracing total virtualization of servers, desktops and storage, the college is now saving a quarter million dollars a year that would have been spent on hardware had we not deployed best-of-breed virtualization solutions from DataCore and Citrix.”
A Complete Virtual IT Environment Powered by DataCore and Citrix
DataCore’s SANsymphony software enables institutions of higher learning, such as SCC, to use their existing storage equipment and devices to achieve the robust and responsive shared storage infrastructure necessary to support highly dynamic virtual IT environments, including desktops. This contrasts sharply with the alternative “rip and replace” approach, which is often prohibitively expensive and results in a rigid infrastructure that cannot adapt to future storage needs.
DataCore software runs on HP DL 380 servers and these DataCore storage virtualization nodes connect to Xiotech Emprise 5000 hardware. The combination of Citrix’s unique provisioning technology and DataCore’s storage virtualization software dramatically reduces demands on storage and improves performance significantly – giving users maximum availability and performance from their virtual desktops.
Virtualization has turned technology operations at SCC from a cost center into a resource that actually funds innovation. SCC now offers technology innovation grants from the money it is saving in its technology operations budget.
The mySCC Virtual Environment: Today’s Online, Digitized University of the Future
mySCC is an end-to-end virtual IT environment whose virtual desktops enable access to over 230 applications across all of SCC’s faculty, staff and students. It serves the needs of approximately 12,000 students and 1,000 employees, including both full-time and part-time staffers, as well as adjunct and residential faculty. Through mySCC’s virtual desktop experience, users are presented with remote access to simple Windows applications like Microsoft Office – as well as more esoteric ones like AutoCAD. SCC sought to make its learning materials and resources completely accessible and affordable for any student – regardless of physical whereabouts, academic discipline and socioeconomic status.
IT administrators at SCC are now able to manage their older storage devices behind the same unified DataCore interface as the newer, higher-speed Xiotech arrays. SCC centrally controls DataCore’s comprehensive feature set across their entire infrastructure rather than being forced to deal with model-specific variations as is the case with device-by-device administration.
“The IT needs of our country’s colleges and universities are growing increasingly complex and expensive,” said George Teixiera, president and CEO of DataCore Software. “With tuition growing at alarming rates, colleges must drive operating costs down significantly to keep higher education affordable and accessible. By virtualizing their infrastructure, SCC has not only been able to extend their online resources to every student regardless of location and focus of study, they were able to generate incredible savings – funds that can be re-allocated to support critical assets and functions, such as the faculty and academic programs.”
DataCore offers 50% discounts to qualified educational institutions. To find out more, please visit: http://www.datacore.com/Solutions/Major-Verticals/storage-virtualization-software-for-education.aspx.
Full Scottsdale Community College Case Study: http://www.datacore.com/Libraries/Case_Study_PDFs/Scottsdale_Community_College.sflb.ashx
About Scottsdale Community College
Scottsdale Community College, a two-year college located in Scottsdale, Arizona, enrolls approximately 12,000 students and employs around 1,000 staff. The institution has recently expanded enrollment with non-traditional learners such as working adults and people who take courses online. Visit www.scottsdalecc.edu.
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
How To Sell Storage Virtualization To the CIO
http://community.crn.com/groups/how-do-i-info-for-starting-your-var-business/blog/2011/04/29/how-to-sell-storage-virtualization-to-the-cio#comments
By Dan Hascall, vice president of Americas channel and sales operations, DataCore Software
Your customers are becoming overrun with data—and those that must comply with Federal regulations are struggling to store crushing amounts of information for long periods of time. The solution is, quite obviously, to sell the those companies more storage. Here, Hascall, who has held senior level management positions at VMware, Alliance Systems, and Sun Microsystems, discusses how to get buy-in from the top for a virtualized solution.
Data that is housed in enterprise data centers is growing at an astounding 60 percent per year, according to analyst firm IDC. For CIOs, this is not good news. Furthermore, Sarbanes-Oxley compliant companies must store their data for at least seven years. The move to agile, virtual infrastructures has also exacerbated the cost and demands placed on shared storage systems. In this quandary of data storage issues, storage virtualization software has provided a much-needed grounding.
Virtual Resource Pools: Manage the growth and cost of storage as you do servers
Put simply, storage virtualization software makes it easy to pool and share storage resources just as server virtualization allows you to do the same for computing resources. It adds a new level of flexibility and responsiveness to meet user needs by ensuring that supply meets business demand. From a ‘lowering risk’ standpoint, storage virtualization software insulates users and applications from the inevitable upgrades, changes and disruptions that occur at the underlying hardware level. Storage virtualization software that works infrastructure-wide is the logical next step to complement and extend the business value of server and desktop virtualization. The combination acts as an enabler and an accelerator for businesses to fully benefit from virtualized environments, while at the same time giving users the freedom to choose the storage hardware technologies that best meet their needs and budgets.
How do you get CIOs to jump on the storage virtualization bandwagon if they’re not on it already? Learn five compelling points that make storage virtualization right for their organization. [Read the complete article]
By Dan Hascall, vice president of Americas channel and sales operations, DataCore Software
Your customers are becoming overrun with data—and those that must comply with Federal regulations are struggling to store crushing amounts of information for long periods of time. The solution is, quite obviously, to sell the those companies more storage. Here, Hascall, who has held senior level management positions at VMware, Alliance Systems, and Sun Microsystems, discusses how to get buy-in from the top for a virtualized solution.
Data that is housed in enterprise data centers is growing at an astounding 60 percent per year, according to analyst firm IDC. For CIOs, this is not good news. Furthermore, Sarbanes-Oxley compliant companies must store their data for at least seven years. The move to agile, virtual infrastructures has also exacerbated the cost and demands placed on shared storage systems. In this quandary of data storage issues, storage virtualization software has provided a much-needed grounding.
Virtual Resource Pools: Manage the growth and cost of storage as you do servers
Put simply, storage virtualization software makes it easy to pool and share storage resources just as server virtualization allows you to do the same for computing resources. It adds a new level of flexibility and responsiveness to meet user needs by ensuring that supply meets business demand. From a ‘lowering risk’ standpoint, storage virtualization software insulates users and applications from the inevitable upgrades, changes and disruptions that occur at the underlying hardware level. Storage virtualization software that works infrastructure-wide is the logical next step to complement and extend the business value of server and desktop virtualization. The combination acts as an enabler and an accelerator for businesses to fully benefit from virtualized environments, while at the same time giving users the freedom to choose the storage hardware technologies that best meet their needs and budgets.
How do you get CIOs to jump on the storage virtualization bandwagon if they’re not on it already? Learn five compelling points that make storage virtualization right for their organization. [Read the complete article]
3 Year Storage Implementations … Déjà Vu All Over Again?
We’ve been talking a lot lately about “The Big Problem” facing virtualization projects, which is the need to virtualize the often-overlooked storage tier when desktops and servers are being virtualized. Many organizations have fallen into the trap of totally overhauling their existing hardware storage infrastructure in order to accommodate large-scale projects, at great expense both financially and in terms of IT efficiency.
One example that stuck out to me was in a recent article by CMIO Magazine in which a New York-based rehab hospital spent $450K and three years implementing a storage disk array to facilitate the use of electronic medical records (EMRs).
The CIO of the hospital was dealing with 500 users with more than 1,000 devices on its network across 15 buildings, spanning a 60-acre campus. One of main problems he was facing was that his 10-person IT staff had 30 projects going on simultaneously and the server-attached ...
Monday, 2 May 2011
DataCore Adds NAS Performance Acceleration and High-Availability File Sharing Support to SANsymphony-V Storage Virtualization Software
http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/03/18/datacore-adds-nas-performance-acceleration-and-high-availability-file-sharing-support-to-sansymphony-v-storage-virtualization-software.aspx
DataCore Software is announcing that its SANsymphony™-V software addresses the three major roadblocks – cost, performance and business continuity – that have made it impractical for critical virtualization projects to utilize Network Attached Storage (NAS).
Why It Matters?
DataCore with SANsymphony-V software can now address customer NAS requirments in addition to meeting their SAN needs.
Enterprise NAS hardware (High Performance, Highly Available, Highly Scalable) systems such as NetApp filers and EMC Isilon have been successful in larger data centers but due to their very expensive price points are not able to meet the needs of small and mid-size businesses. DataCore has addressed this dilemma with its SANsymphony-V storage virtualization software. The new development announced today employs standard Windows servers with off-the-shelf disks to achieve the required levels of uninterrupted shared file services at a reasonable price. Moreover, these systems now scale to performance levels once achieved only by “enterprise” NAS hardware.
Quotes --
Jeff Boles, senior analyst and director of validation services, Taneja Group:
“SANsymphony-V can be easily configured to significantly accelerate performance and add a new level of data protection to Microsoft’s Clustered File Shares. This resulting combination of SANsymphony-V and Microsoft is additive; it is simple to set up, requires no additional purchases and best of all it allows organizations to meet both their NAS and SAN requirements from one virtual infrastructure.”
John Bocskor, vice president of product management, DataCore Software:
“Unlike other attempts at converged SAN/NAS, the DataCore approach optimizes each layer for what it does best, yet both are managed from the familiar Windows Server administration console via a user-friendly interface with self-guided wizards.”
Key points --
Existing DataCore SANsymphony-V customers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V do not need to buy additional software to support the clustered NAS file sharing features. For those new to DataCore, SANsymphony-V software, including the NAS capabilities, can be professionally installed through DataCore-authorized solution providers across the globe.
DataCore Software is announcing that its SANsymphony™-V software addresses the three major roadblocks – cost, performance and business continuity – that have made it impractical for critical virtualization projects to utilize Network Attached Storage (NAS).
Why It Matters?
DataCore with SANsymphony-V software can now address customer NAS requirments in addition to meeting their SAN needs.
Enterprise NAS hardware (High Performance, Highly Available, Highly Scalable) systems such as NetApp filers and EMC Isilon have been successful in larger data centers but due to their very expensive price points are not able to meet the needs of small and mid-size businesses. DataCore has addressed this dilemma with its SANsymphony-V storage virtualization software. The new development announced today employs standard Windows servers with off-the-shelf disks to achieve the required levels of uninterrupted shared file services at a reasonable price. Moreover, these systems now scale to performance levels once achieved only by “enterprise” NAS hardware.
Quotes --
Jeff Boles, senior analyst and director of validation services, Taneja Group:
“SANsymphony-V can be easily configured to significantly accelerate performance and add a new level of data protection to Microsoft’s Clustered File Shares. This resulting combination of SANsymphony-V and Microsoft is additive; it is simple to set up, requires no additional purchases and best of all it allows organizations to meet both their NAS and SAN requirements from one virtual infrastructure.”
John Bocskor, vice president of product management, DataCore Software:
“Unlike other attempts at converged SAN/NAS, the DataCore approach optimizes each layer for what it does best, yet both are managed from the familiar Windows Server administration console via a user-friendly interface with self-guided wizards.”
Key points --
- SANsymphony-V overcomes shared storage shortcomings and makes it feasible to employ the widely used NAS services already built into the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 platform in those environments.
- DataCore’s powerful feature set can be easily configured to enhance these Microsoft services. The integrated combination cost-effectively speeds up performance and adds a new level of fault tolerance to clustered network file system (NFS) and common Internet file system (CIFS) sharing.
- The new solution is particularly well-suited for IT organizations that prefer to store their VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenDesktop virtual machine images under NFS or CIFS. Many of them are eager to eliminate bottlenecks and disruptions in their underlying storage systems, but not willing to spend a lot of money doing it.
Existing DataCore SANsymphony-V customers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V do not need to buy additional software to support the clustered NAS file sharing features. For those new to DataCore, SANsymphony-V software, including the NAS capabilities, can be professionally installed through DataCore-authorized solution providers across the globe.
Storage by the Barrel
Every time you drive past a gas station, it’s painfully clear that the oil and gas industry is experiencing extraordinary supply and demand issues … which translates to escalating prices. According to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook report, by 2030 global energy demand is expected to increase by 50%, and oil- and gas-based energy will account for approximately 60% of this increase.
That’s why there may be no other industry today that demands a more diverse set of technological capabilities than oil and gas exploration and production. Mark P. Mills said it best in his recent Forbes.com column, “Whither oil prices? 150 in sight. So follow Bill Gates in to digital barrels”:
Sit in an oil conference today and you hear about digital technology and software, cloud computing, remote servers, bandwidth constraints, high-speed wireless, terabytes of storage, GPS, laser mapping, virtualization, virtual-reality caves, satellite imaging, hyperspectral cubes, reverse-time software, and virtualization.
Did you catch that: terabytes of storage? Let me put it into perspective. One terabyte can hold 1,000 copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica and 10 terabytes can hold the printed collection of the Library of Congress. That’s a lot of data.
There’s little doubt that data and storage are literally the “beating heart” of today’s oil and gas organizations. But really, oil and gas is just a “poster child” for what’s happening across enterprises of all types and sizes. As enterprises become increasingly data-driven, they consume and create ever-more data from an increasingly diverse universe of sources. And while storage prices continue to decline, they are not keeping pace with the rate of data consumption, which is causing new problems in manageability, usability and data center resources. This all adds up to systemic storage problems.
With the emergence of the virtualized IT infrastructure, as well as the explosive data growth we’ve experienced over the past 10-plus years, storage management is now in the spotlight as storage volume has become the biggest cost driver for IT. And it’s become evident that a new approach is needed.
In this quandary of data storage issues, we believe virtualization-driven storage consolidation has provided a much-needed grounding. Storage virtualization is a practical and effective way to manage the increasing complexity of data and growing demands for high-availability. It also allows organizations to meet this challenge in a manner that reduces operational costs, improves efficiency, provides an expanded choice of hardware alternatives, and extends the life of existing storage assets.
And it puts real money back into the IT budget. Don’t you have some encyclopedias to buy or something?
That’s why there may be no other industry today that demands a more diverse set of technological capabilities than oil and gas exploration and production. Mark P. Mills said it best in his recent Forbes.com column, “Whither oil prices? 150 in sight. So follow Bill Gates in to digital barrels”:
Sit in an oil conference today and you hear about digital technology and software, cloud computing, remote servers, bandwidth constraints, high-speed wireless, terabytes of storage, GPS, laser mapping, virtualization, virtual-reality caves, satellite imaging, hyperspectral cubes, reverse-time software, and virtualization.
There’s little doubt that data and storage are literally the “beating heart” of today’s oil and gas organizations. But really, oil and gas is just a “poster child” for what’s happening across enterprises of all types and sizes. As enterprises become increasingly data-driven, they consume and create ever-more data from an increasingly diverse universe of sources. And while storage prices continue to decline, they are not keeping pace with the rate of data consumption, which is causing new problems in manageability, usability and data center resources. This all adds up to systemic storage problems.
With the emergence of the virtualized IT infrastructure, as well as the explosive data growth we’ve experienced over the past 10-plus years, storage management is now in the spotlight as storage volume has become the biggest cost driver for IT. And it’s become evident that a new approach is needed.
In this quandary of data storage issues, we believe virtualization-driven storage consolidation has provided a much-needed grounding. Storage virtualization is a practical and effective way to manage the increasing complexity of data and growing demands for high-availability. It also allows organizations to meet this challenge in a manner that reduces operational costs, improves efficiency, provides an expanded choice of hardware alternatives, and extends the life of existing storage assets.
And it puts real money back into the IT budget. Don’t you have some encyclopedias to buy or something?
Saturday, 30 April 2011
DataCore Unveils Features of Forthcoming Storage Pooling Add-in for Microsoft Home Server
The Home Server Show interviewed DataCore’s Carlos Carreras this week about their forthcoming storage pooling add-in for Windows Home Server 2011. As revealed back in February, DataCore the Enterprise storage virtualization specialist was approached by Microsoft late last year to look at ways of replicating some of the Drive Extender features that have been removed from Windows Home Server 2011.
The company subsequently announced support for Windows Home Server some weeks later but there has been little detail on which features from Datacore’s Enterprise software would be enabled for Windows Home Server users, and indeed, how the software’s storage pooling capabilities would work. In the course of this week’s interview, some of those questions were answered.
http://www.wegotserved.com/2011/04/22/datacore-unveils-features-forthcoming-storage-pooling-addin/
What is Tranquil PC Doing with Windows Home Server 2011
http://usingwindowshomeserver.com/2011/04/21/more-information-on-what-are-tranquil-pc-doing-with-windows-home-server-2011/
...I already said a few weeks ago that DataCore’s add-in for Windows Home Server 2011 was the one I was most interested in testing and using, and now that Tranquil are going to be incorporating it as well can only be yet another tick in the box for DataCore.
The company subsequently announced support for Windows Home Server some weeks later but there has been little detail on which features from Datacore’s Enterprise software would be enabled for Windows Home Server users, and indeed, how the software’s storage pooling capabilities would work. In the course of this week’s interview, some of those questions were answered.
http://www.wegotserved.com/2011/04/22/datacore-unveils-features-forthcoming-storage-pooling-addin/
What is Tranquil PC Doing with Windows Home Server 2011
http://usingwindowshomeserver.com/2011/04/21/more-information-on-what-are-tranquil-pc-doing-with-windows-home-server-2011/
...I already said a few weeks ago that DataCore’s add-in for Windows Home Server 2011 was the one I was most interested in testing and using, and now that Tranquil are going to be incorporating it as well can only be yet another tick in the box for DataCore.
Friday, 29 April 2011
DataCore Software's SANsymphony-V Wins 2011 Network Computing Award for "Data Center Product of the Year"
http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/04/25/datacore-software-s-sansymphony-v-wins-2011-network-computing-award-for-data-center-product-of-the-year.aspx
http://www.it-director.com/channels/sys_integration/news_release.php?rel=24580
DataCore Software, the industry’s premier provider of storage virtualization software announced that it has won one of the UK’s top networking accolades by scooping the Data Center Product of the Year Award at the prestigious 2011 Network Computing Awards held at the Russell Hotel in London.
Keith Joseph, Regional Manager, Northern Europe at DataCore Software, happily collected the award and commented, “This is the first award that SANsymphony-V has gained since its launch in January. Part of what enticed the Network Computing readers to vote for the new solution was the favorable independent review that appeared in the magazine recently. The review and this award endorses just how easy SANsymphony-V has made installation of virtualization across desktop and server environments for network administrators and managers.”
Indeed, Carla Arend, program manager, European infrastructure software research at IDC, underscores Joseph’s comments, “With the launch of SANsymphony-V, DataCore has redesigned its software for virtual server and desktop environments. However, DataCore’s key benefits of extending the useful life of hardware, cutting hardware costs and removing vendor lock-in are still intact, and apply to both the physical and virtual world.”
In brief the award recognizes that with SANsymphony-V network managers can achieve:
- Much lower risk to deploy virtualization projects since a complete storage and process overhaul is not required; changes can be implemented incrementally, tried or undone selectively.
- Cost-effective Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery to safeguard business.
- Infrastructure-wide administration and automation to increase staff productivity.
- Greater savings from consolidation, repurposing and better utilization of existing resources.
- Reduced complexity and greater control to manage growth and optimize budgets.
- Enduring value from a software solution that lives beyond devices that “come and go.”
The Network Computing Awards were established in 2005 to recognize best-of-breed, easy to use solutions that make the working lives of network administrators and managers easier and more effective. Voting takes place independently across a two month time frame, with just under 4,000 voters contributing.
“DataCore Tackles Storage Virtualization Barrier”
Access the Network Computing review on SANsymphony-V:
http://www.networkcomputing.com/virtualization/datacore-tackles-storage-virtualization-barrier.php?keyword=SANSymphony-V
Test-drive SANsymphony-V:
http://www.datacore.com/Software/Closer-Look/Demos.aspx
Thursday, 28 April 2011
New Microsoft Case Study Details How DataCore Storage Virtualization Software and Hyper-V Combine to Enable Cloud Service Provider AcXess to Save Millions
SANsymphony and Hyper-V software support Microsoft’s global field and technical force sales teams who rely on AcXess V-Works™ Cloud to demonstrate and sell their solutions to customers worldwide.
At the recent Microsoft Management Summit 2011 in Las Vegas, DataCore Software announced that cloud services provider AcXess is using DataCore’s SANsymphony™ software to create a dynamic, resilient virtual storage infrastructure that cost-effectively supports the company’s Microsoft® Hyper-V™ server virtualization environment and its business model.
AcXess has built its business around flexible virtualization technologies designed to meet the needs of key customers such as Microsoft who rely on AcXess to provide reasonably priced services such as on-demand sales demos, proof-of-concept (POC) labs, and training sessions in virtualized environments to thousands of employees, partners, and customers. Leveraging the combination of Hyper-V and DataCore, AcXess has doubled the number of users year over year and has grown its business 300 percent, while saving $5 million in hardware costs. A full case study is available on Microsoft’s website.
“DataCore storage virtualization software has proven itself to be the ideal solution. We run a number of large systems for Microsoft in the cloud today and it was a very logical choice to choose DataCore to run the SAN component of the AcXess V-Works™ platform,” states Tom Elowson, president and cofounder of AcXess. “The reason that we chose DataCore was the flexibility and cost savings we gained from their storage virtualization solution and the way that it worked within our system to provide very powerful experiences to accelerate revenue for Microsoft sales people and other clients around the world.”
At the recent Microsoft Management Summit 2011 in Las Vegas, DataCore Software announced that cloud services provider AcXess is using DataCore’s SANsymphony™ software to create a dynamic, resilient virtual storage infrastructure that cost-effectively supports the company’s Microsoft® Hyper-V™ server virtualization environment and its business model.
AcXess has built its business around flexible virtualization technologies designed to meet the needs of key customers such as Microsoft who rely on AcXess to provide reasonably priced services such as on-demand sales demos, proof-of-concept (POC) labs, and training sessions in virtualized environments to thousands of employees, partners, and customers. Leveraging the combination of Hyper-V and DataCore, AcXess has doubled the number of users year over year and has grown its business 300 percent, while saving $5 million in hardware costs. A full case study is available on Microsoft’s website.
“DataCore storage virtualization software has proven itself to be the ideal solution. We run a number of large systems for Microsoft in the cloud today and it was a very logical choice to choose DataCore to run the SAN component of the AcXess V-Works™ platform,” states Tom Elowson, president and cofounder of AcXess. “The reason that we chose DataCore was the flexibility and cost savings we gained from their storage virtualization solution and the way that it worked within our system to provide very powerful experiences to accelerate revenue for Microsoft sales people and other clients around the world.”
ESG Lab Reports: DataCore SANsymphony-V: Compelling Storage Virtualization Software
ESG Lab Validation Highlights: http://www.enterprisestrategygroup.com/2011/04/datacore-sansymphony-v-compelling-storage-virtualization-software/
- DataCore SANsymphony-V R8 was very quick and easy to set up and manage. ESG Lab set up a two node, high-availability SANsymphony-V environment and was serving storage to virtual machines in minutes.
- With one click of a mouse, ESG Lab was able to serve a thin provisioned, performance tuned, fully protected, synchronously mirrored 1TB virtual disk to a Windows server in less than a minute.
- Migrating and importing disk drives from a working physical server into the virtual disk pool was a quick and easy process. The DataCore software provided a seamless transition from physical to virtual infrastructure while actually enhancing performance and availability.
- DataCore synchronous mirroring provided hosts with continuous access to virtual disks through a node outage with zero downtime and no interruptions to service.
- DataCore Continuous Data Protection (CDP) was easy to configure and use, enabling rollback to a specific point in time without having to create multiple snapshots.
- DataCore asynchronous remote replication was also easy to configure; compression and multi-streaming provided a 2x throughput enhancement over a simulated T1 link.
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
451 Group Impact Report: DataCore Renews Storage Virtualization, Plays Up Virtual Desktop Synergies
Analyst: John Abbott, Simon Robinson
DataCore Software recently introduced the first complete rewrite of its core storage virtualization technology since it was founded in 1998. The newly launched SANsymphony-V will eventually replace the original SANsymphony product line and also incorporate the previously separate entry-level SANmelody software, first introduced back in 2005. It's been designed to better support more recent trends in computing, such as cloud, virtual servers and virtual desktops, but it also helps simplify the core functionality with a better user interface, auto-tuned caches and built-in features such as workflow, continuous data protection and automated traffic-compressing replication.
Check out all the latest analyst reports on DataCore at: http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/What-Others-are-Saying/Analyst-Reports.aspx
DataCore Software recently introduced the first complete rewrite of its core storage virtualization technology since it was founded in 1998. The newly launched SANsymphony-V will eventually replace the original SANsymphony product line and also incorporate the previously separate entry-level SANmelody software, first introduced back in 2005. It's been designed to better support more recent trends in computing, such as cloud, virtual servers and virtual desktops, but it also helps simplify the core functionality with a better user interface, auto-tuned caches and built-in features such as workflow, continuous data protection and automated traffic-compressing replication.
Check out all the latest analyst reports on DataCore at: http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/What-Others-are-Saying/Analyst-Reports.aspx
Tips to Overcome 3 Potential NAS Issues
http://www.bisdatacentres.co.uk/news/tips-to-overcome-3-potential-nas-issues/2022011
Network attached storage (NAS) is an attractive idea. It is relatively inexpensive and can deliver high performance; but unless managed carefully, with a product like Datacore’s virtualizing SANsymphony-V, it can create its own problems.
Network attached storage (NAS) is an attractive idea. It is relatively inexpensive and can deliver high performance; but unless managed carefully, with a product like Datacore’s virtualizing SANsymphony-V, it can create its own problems.
Saturday, 23 April 2011
Virtualization TCO: Fact or Fiction?
“The nine-month ROI that vendors might advertise for their latest and greatest technologies can actually average three or four years, according to our clients that have crunched the numbers for their hosted desktop virtualization deployments,” Forrester wrote. “Why? Because the upfront infrastructure and licensing costs far outweigh the upfront benefits.”
This is especially true when you consider the high cost of the storage infrastructure needed to support virtual desktop deployments. In fact, Wikibon recently posted an intriguing video interview on how storage represents the biggest drag to virtual desktops. It points out that for every $1 spent on virtual desktop deployments, $3 to $10 is spent on storage.
To offset these numbers and make the cost of storage seem reasonable, vendors have spread the large cost over thousands of desktops. But as desktop Guru Brian Madden points out on his blog, we can clearly see the problem when ...
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Server Virtualization Faces Real Problems
Storage costs and needed upgrades slowing adoption, surveyed IT managers say
https://www.information-management.com/news/server-virtualization-problems-10020082-1.html?zkPrintable=true
Valerie Valentine: Information Management Online
According to Jon Toigo, CEO of Toigo Partners International, said the figures in the survey underscore anecdotal issues facing IT managers. “The fundamental issue confounding hypervisor-based virtualization is storage. Inflexible storage fabrics are becoming a source of application performance pain and represent a single point of failure in the high availability story touted by hypervisor vendors,” Toigo says.
Toigo points out that virtualizing storage is less expensive than ripping out and replacing current storage infrastructure.
“Virtualized storage is also the key, going forward to successful desktop virtualization initiatives and to cloud service integrations. As more companies, compelled by reasons of cost or enhanced user mobility, begin to explore these technologies, hopefully the lessons learned around stalled server virtualization projects will not be forgotten.”
Unanticipated storage costs, availability concerns and performance bottlenecks are hindering server consolidation and desktop virtualization projects, according to storage vendor DataCore’s survey of more than 450 IT organizations across North America and Europe.
Of those that have deployed server virtualization, 66 percent cited a substantial increase in storage costs as the biggest problem they are facing. Nearly 40 percent say the storage infrastructure is either slowing application performance or limiting its availability, while more than 20 percent indicate that business continuity has become more difficult, according to the survey.
DataCore reports that despite hype surrounding cloud initiatives, a majority (73 percent) of organizations have yet to take advantage of cloud services for storage needs. However, 70 percent said access to more disk space would be the most important characteristic they would want from cloud-related storage.
Almost half (48 percent) of those surveyed are now using storage virtualization software with their server and desktop virtualization initiatives. Nearly three in four (74 percent) rely on it to improve disaster recovery and business continuity practices.
Storage: Virtualization’s wallflower?
http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/IT-watch-blog/storage-virtualizations-wallflower/
DataCore Software, known for its storage virtualization software, has released a survey comprising over 450 IT organizations across North America and Europe, “The State of Virtualization.” The findings can be a little disturbing, especially to a company who creates a product that many medium and large enterprise IT orgs are leaving out of their virtualization plans: Storage. The study found that 43 percent had mistaken the impact storage would have on server and desktop virtualization or had shied away from a virtualization project because storage-related costs were too high.
https://www.information-management.com/news/server-virtualization-problems-10020082-1.html?zkPrintable=true
Valerie Valentine: Information Management Online
According to Jon Toigo, CEO of Toigo Partners International, said the figures in the survey underscore anecdotal issues facing IT managers. “The fundamental issue confounding hypervisor-based virtualization is storage. Inflexible storage fabrics are becoming a source of application performance pain and represent a single point of failure in the high availability story touted by hypervisor vendors,” Toigo says.
Toigo points out that virtualizing storage is less expensive than ripping out and replacing current storage infrastructure.
“Virtualized storage is also the key, going forward to successful desktop virtualization initiatives and to cloud service integrations. As more companies, compelled by reasons of cost or enhanced user mobility, begin to explore these technologies, hopefully the lessons learned around stalled server virtualization projects will not be forgotten.”
Unanticipated storage costs, availability concerns and performance bottlenecks are hindering server consolidation and desktop virtualization projects, according to storage vendor DataCore’s survey of more than 450 IT organizations across North America and Europe.
Of those that have deployed server virtualization, 66 percent cited a substantial increase in storage costs as the biggest problem they are facing. Nearly 40 percent say the storage infrastructure is either slowing application performance or limiting its availability, while more than 20 percent indicate that business continuity has become more difficult, according to the survey.
DataCore reports that despite hype surrounding cloud initiatives, a majority (73 percent) of organizations have yet to take advantage of cloud services for storage needs. However, 70 percent said access to more disk space would be the most important characteristic they would want from cloud-related storage.
Almost half (48 percent) of those surveyed are now using storage virtualization software with their server and desktop virtualization initiatives. Nearly three in four (74 percent) rely on it to improve disaster recovery and business continuity practices.
Storage: Virtualization’s wallflower?
http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/IT-watch-blog/storage-virtualizations-wallflower/
DataCore Software, known for its storage virtualization software, has released a survey comprising over 450 IT organizations across North America and Europe, “The State of Virtualization.” The findings can be a little disturbing, especially to a company who creates a product that many medium and large enterprise IT orgs are leaving out of their virtualization plans: Storage. The study found that 43 percent had mistaken the impact storage would have on server and desktop virtualization or had shied away from a virtualization project because storage-related costs were too high.
Enterprise Strategy Group Hands-On Testing and Benchmarking Validates Key Value Propositions of DataCore Software’s Storage Virtualization Platform
DataCore Software has announced the results of comprehensive hands-on testing and performance benchmarking conducted on its SANsymphony™-V R8 product by the Lab team at leading industry analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG).
“DataCore’s impact on performance was dramatic, in every metric we measured,” said Tony Palmer, senior engineer and analyst with ESG Lab. “Even more impressive is how SANsymphony-V simplifies management and how easily it can make data center storage more resilient. With a single mouse click disk capacity is served and all the normal error-prone steps to configure, tune, and set best paths for high-availability get done auto-magically.”
ESG Lab summarized its test conclusions as follows: “ESG Lab firmly believes that it would benefit any organization considering or implementing an IT virtualization project to take a long look at DataCore SANsymphony-V R8 storage virtualization software. It is robust, flexible, and responsive and delivers major value in terms of utilization, economics, improved response times, high-availability, and easy administration.”
To download the full ESG Lab Validation Report, please visit: DataCore Software – FEATURED ANALYST REPORTS.
Powerful, Intuitive, and Automated
ESG Lab found that the software was “very quick and easy to set up and manage” and “virtualizing storage was intuitive and straightforward.” In fact, ESG analysts configured a high-availability SANsymphony-V environment and were serving storage to virtual machines in minutes. “The volume was thin provisioned, mirrored for high-availability, and preferred and alternate paths to storage resources were set without administrator intervention. ESG Lab was impressed with the speed, simplicity, and completeness of the configuration.”
SANsymphony-V software enables data centers to use existing equipment and conventional storage devices to achieve the robust and responsive shared storage environment necessary to support highly dynamic virtual IT environments. This contrasts sharply with the expensive “rip and replace” approaches being proposed to support desktop and server virtualization projects. In its findings, ESG Lab verified that DataCore SANsymphony-V software can be deployed to cost-effectively provide easy-to-configure, performance enhanced, storage virtualization, offering affordable scalability, and performance acceleration for virtualized servers and applications.
“Enterprises have long been concerned about underutilization of servers in their data centers,” continued Palmer. “Virtualization helps them consolidate data by reducing the number of servers used and leaving those that remain as a pool of resources to be drawn on as needed. Now, enterprises are turning their attention to storage, and DataCore is tapping into that demand.”
SANsymphony-V Delivering Compelling Value, Innovation and Faster Performance
The ESG Lab Validation Report on DataCore SANsymphony-V also specifically highlights the following:
- Performance improved significantly for every workload with the File Server workload posting the most significant improvement, more than 6x and the Exchange 2007 workload showing a 5x improvement.
- With one click of a mouse, ESG Lab was able to serve a thin provisioned, performance tuned, fully protected, synchronously mirrored 1TB virtual disk to a Windows server in less than a minute.
- Migrating and importing disk drives from a working physical server into the virtual disk pool was a fast and effortless process. DataCore storage virtualization software provided a seamless transition from physical to virtual infrastructure while actually enhancing performance and availability.
- DataCore synchronous mirroring provided hosts with continuous access to virtual disks through a node outage with zero downtime and no interruptions to service.
- DataCore Continuous Data Protection (CDP) was simple to configure and use, enabling rollback to a specific point in time without having to create multiple snapshots.
- DataCore asynchronous remote replication was also easy to configure; compression and multi-streaming provided a 2x throughput enhancement over a simulated T1 link.
For more information and to view the full report, please visit: http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/What-Others-are-Saying/Analyst-Reports.aspx.
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
Virtualization Strategies Must Include Storage
http://www.rackspace.co.uk/rackspace-home/media-centre/news/article/article/virtualisation-strategies-must-include-storage/?tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=3931&cHash=e259f64b5ce67c57888b3b44c418bd74
Virtualization of desktops and servers has so far saved some businesses a bundle on their IT costs, but when overhauling a data center or integrating virtualization to existing networks, businesses need to consider storage needs as well.
According to George Teixeira, president and chief executive of DataCore Software Corp, the cost appeal of virtualization can often distract from other priorities in the company.
"You get excited about saving all this money with consolidating many servers to a few and completely forget that part of that has to be used to offset getting additional capabilities on the storage side," he told IT World Canada.
Teixeira's company conducted a survey of medium to large scale businesses throughout North America and Europe, with one third of respondents indicating they mis-estimated budgets for storage when deploying virtualization solutions.
Virtualization of desktops and servers has so far saved some businesses a bundle on their IT costs, but when overhauling a data center or integrating virtualization to existing networks, businesses need to consider storage needs as well.
According to George Teixeira, president and chief executive of DataCore Software Corp, the cost appeal of virtualization can often distract from other priorities in the company.
"You get excited about saving all this money with consolidating many servers to a few and completely forget that part of that has to be used to offset getting additional capabilities on the storage side," he told IT World Canada.
Teixeira's company conducted a survey of medium to large scale businesses throughout North America and Europe, with one third of respondents indicating they mis-estimated budgets for storage when deploying virtualization solutions.
Monday, 18 April 2011
DataCore Adds NAS Performance Acceleration, File Sharing Support to SANsymphony-V Storage Platform
http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/Storage/DataCore-Adds-NAS-Performance-Acceleration-File-Sharing-Support-to-SANsymphonyV-Storage-Platform-694/
Storage virtualization software specialist DataCore Software announced it has integrated Network Attached Storage (NAS) performance acceleration and high-availability file sharing support for its SANsymphony-V platform, makes it possible to employ the NAS services built into the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 platform in those environments. The integrated combination is designed to speed up performance and add a level of fault tolerance to clustered network file system (NFS) and common Internet file system (CIFS) sharing.
DataCore’s design employs mirrored copies of the SANsymphony-V software layered beneath clustered file shares (NAS) integral to Windows Servers 2008 Enterprise. Any standard storage device can be used for disk space, ranging from the basic internal hard drives packaged by the server manufacturers, to bigger external disk arrays offered by the popular storage systems vendors.
“SANsymphony-V can be easily configured to significantly accelerate performance and add a new level of data protection to Microsoft’s Clustered File Shares,” said Jeff Boles, senior analyst and director of validation services, Taneja Group. “This resulting combination of SANsymphony-V and Microsoft is additive; it is simple to set up, requires no additional purchases and best of all it allows organizations to meet both their NAS and SAN requirements from one virtual infrastructure.”
In the smallest configuration, the software co-resides with the clustered file share functions on each of two redundant Windows Enterprise servers. SANsymphony-V performs adaptive I/O caching directly on top of Hyper-V to speed up block disk access while mirroring updates to the other server’s virtual disk copy: All disk space is thin provisioned. Snapshots and Continuous Data Protection (CDP) can be turned on for added protection helping customers recover from events like ‘virus attacks’ and inadvertent deletions.
For larger environments, the file share cluster remains split across two machines, while the DataCore software runs on two separate servers dedicated to block storage virtualization. The cluster then accesses the DataCore virtual storage pool over an iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN. Customers who start small and later outgrow the two servers can reassign their software licenses to the two additional servers. Incremental capacity licenses may also be added at any time to cover expansion.
Existing SANsymphony-V customers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V do not need to buy additional software to support the clustered NAS file sharing features. For companies new to DataCore, SANsymphony-V software, including the NAS capabilities, can be professionally installed through the company’s authorized solution providers and resellers.
Storage virtualization software specialist DataCore Software announced it has integrated Network Attached Storage (NAS) performance acceleration and high-availability file sharing support for its SANsymphony-V platform, makes it possible to employ the NAS services built into the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 platform in those environments. The integrated combination is designed to speed up performance and add a level of fault tolerance to clustered network file system (NFS) and common Internet file system (CIFS) sharing.
DataCore’s design employs mirrored copies of the SANsymphony-V software layered beneath clustered file shares (NAS) integral to Windows Servers 2008 Enterprise. Any standard storage device can be used for disk space, ranging from the basic internal hard drives packaged by the server manufacturers, to bigger external disk arrays offered by the popular storage systems vendors.
“SANsymphony-V can be easily configured to significantly accelerate performance and add a new level of data protection to Microsoft’s Clustered File Shares,” said Jeff Boles, senior analyst and director of validation services, Taneja Group. “This resulting combination of SANsymphony-V and Microsoft is additive; it is simple to set up, requires no additional purchases and best of all it allows organizations to meet both their NAS and SAN requirements from one virtual infrastructure.”
In the smallest configuration, the software co-resides with the clustered file share functions on each of two redundant Windows Enterprise servers. SANsymphony-V performs adaptive I/O caching directly on top of Hyper-V to speed up block disk access while mirroring updates to the other server’s virtual disk copy: All disk space is thin provisioned. Snapshots and Continuous Data Protection (CDP) can be turned on for added protection helping customers recover from events like ‘virus attacks’ and inadvertent deletions.
For larger environments, the file share cluster remains split across two machines, while the DataCore software runs on two separate servers dedicated to block storage virtualization. The cluster then accesses the DataCore virtual storage pool over an iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN. Customers who start small and later outgrow the two servers can reassign their software licenses to the two additional servers. Incremental capacity licenses may also be added at any time to cover expansion.
Existing SANsymphony-V customers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V do not need to buy additional software to support the clustered NAS file sharing features. For companies new to DataCore, SANsymphony-V software, including the NAS capabilities, can be professionally installed through the company’s authorized solution providers and resellers.
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Solving the Data Center’s Next Big Problem
By George Teixeira, CEO & President, DataCore Software
The transition to a virtualized infrastructure environment has moved to the forefront of many IT discussions. Organizations of all sizes are continuing to pursue the benefits that virtualization can offer, from increased efficiencies to maximization of resources to lower costs. But virtualization is not just about servers or desktops.
Virtualization is about creating agile, cost-effective and enduring IT infrastructures that can evolve to support the enterprise over time. To date, virtualization has largely failed to live up to this promise. Many server and desktop virtualization projects have stalled or failed because of cost overruns or unanticipated infrastructure issues. But why is this happening?
What is being missed is that server and desktop virtualization are about more than merely virtualizing servers and desktops. They are both about virtual IT infrastructure—and if organizations do not virtualize the entire infrastructure, they will not achieve the anticipated return on investment (ROI) and business benefits they are seeking. What they often overlook is the part of the infrastructure upon which both virtual servers and desktops depend: storage.
Today, the “Big Problem” in virtualization projects is storage, and enterprises have learned some hard lessons. They are being sold forklift upgrades of their storage infrastructure and vendor-specific virtualization strategies to support virtualized server and desktop infrastructures. This has moved the storage issue—its high cost, inadequate performance, inflexibility and vendor lock-in—to the front burner in virtualization discussions. That’s why this has become IT’s next “Big Problem.”
Why Virtualize?
Why not? It is universally agreed that server virtualization is a huge leap forward...
Read the full article at:
http://www.datacenterjournal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4499:solving-the-data-centers-next-big-problem&catid=28&Itemid=100123
The transition to a virtualized infrastructure environment has moved to the forefront of many IT discussions. Organizations of all sizes are continuing to pursue the benefits that virtualization can offer, from increased efficiencies to maximization of resources to lower costs. But virtualization is not just about servers or desktops.
Virtualization is about creating agile, cost-effective and enduring IT infrastructures that can evolve to support the enterprise over time. To date, virtualization has largely failed to live up to this promise. Many server and desktop virtualization projects have stalled or failed because of cost overruns or unanticipated infrastructure issues. But why is this happening?
What is being missed is that server and desktop virtualization are about more than merely virtualizing servers and desktops. They are both about virtual IT infrastructure—and if organizations do not virtualize the entire infrastructure, they will not achieve the anticipated return on investment (ROI) and business benefits they are seeking. What they often overlook is the part of the infrastructure upon which both virtual servers and desktops depend: storage.
Today, the “Big Problem” in virtualization projects is storage, and enterprises have learned some hard lessons. They are being sold forklift upgrades of their storage infrastructure and vendor-specific virtualization strategies to support virtualized server and desktop infrastructures. This has moved the storage issue—its high cost, inadequate performance, inflexibility and vendor lock-in—to the front burner in virtualization discussions. That’s why this has become IT’s next “Big Problem.”
Why Virtualize?
Why not? It is universally agreed that server virtualization is a huge leap forward...
Read the full article at:
http://www.datacenterjournal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4499:solving-the-data-centers-next-big-problem&catid=28&Itemid=100123
B.Y.O.S. (Bring Your Own Storage); Thoughts on Wine and Virtualization
On a recent trip, I sat with a group of partners talking about wine and virtualization (a natural pairing, if I do say so myself). I love a restaurant where I can bring my own wine if I choose, but this isn’t the norm in most restaurants and certainly wasn’t the case on that particular night. Instead, I was locked in to their wine list and could only order what they offered, at a steep markup.
So, what does that have to do with virtualization? Everything, when it comes to virtualizing the storage tier.
Everyone wants flexibility and choice without being locked-in to specific hardware requirements. This choice largely exists today in the server and desktop tiers, thanks to the widespread adoption of virtualization software. But when it comes to the storage tier, hardware vendors act like restaurants – they want to lock you into their proprietary product ...
Saturday, 9 April 2011
HA! (We’re not laughing at you, Dilbert.)
Ever since hard disks were deemed critical to data processing, storage suppliers have devoted much effort to circumvent hardware failures. It started with basic disk mirroring and then evolved into the various RAID protection levels in attempts to reduce the cost of redundancy. As external disk subsystems became popular, vendors added redundancy to other components whose failure was considerably more catastrophic; fans, power supplies and disk controllers come to mind.
It’s now commonplace to regard storage products as offering “high-availability” (HA) simply because they have internally redundant hardware. This interpretation creates the expectation that you can always get to data on disks. But this is far from reality.
What They Won’t Tell You About Virtualization … We Will.
Well done! You’ve consolidated 40 applications from 25 servers down to just four servers. Sure, you’ll realize hardware cost savings over time, but surprisingly, these partial steps can also increase the complexity and thus the cost of managing your IT environment. And in too many cases, early successes have given way to unmet expectations.
Why is this happening? You have to remember that virtualization isn’t just about servers or desktops. Virtualization is about creating agile, cost-effective, and enduring IT infrastructures that can evolve to support the enterprise over time. But there is a looming problem that is often overlooked, and one which can bring a virtualization deployment to a standstill – the storage problem.
Full story
Why is this happening? You have to remember that virtualization isn’t just about servers or desktops. Virtualization is about creating agile, cost-effective, and enduring IT infrastructures that can evolve to support the enterprise over time. But there is a looming problem that is often overlooked, and one which can bring a virtualization deployment to a standstill – the storage problem.
You mean you didn’t know that server/desktop virtualization actually increases the complexities of storage management? And at the same time, you didn’t know it can actually stress the overhaul needed for high availability, and disaster recovery? ...
Full story
Friday, 8 April 2011
How Old Man Kryder Gets Back his Giddyup
As the hypervisor wars continue to rage, much attention is being paid to the high end of the market. There is a reason for this – Microsoft is flexing its marketing muscles promoting successes in large, mission-critical deployments. The most recent example of this was a deal it announced with Target, in which Target is migrating numerous mission-critical applications to its Hyper-V environment.
While the large-enterprise sector currently receives the lion’s share of the glitz, we all know that 95% of the economy is the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector. And, we also know that the SME sector is where the first shots of the hypervisor wars were fired, with Microsoft’s launch of Windows Server 2008.
What we have seen since then is a classic case study in why competition is a good thing for customers. VMware responded to Hyper-V with new SME-friendly products, and since then both companies have been “sweetening the deal” with even more attractive bundling and pricing of products and features. Thus, it’s no surprise that as we sit here in 2011, virtualization adoption in the SME market is skyrocketing.
But there is a rub – because while desktop and server virtualization technology costs have never been more appealing, ancillary costs have never been more daunting – particularly storage costs. Kryder’s Law, which states that storage density doubles every 13 months, was remarkably accurate until 2005. Since then, however, capacity gains have slowed and today one can expect no more than 30 or 40 percent annual gains in capacity at any given price-point.
What this means is that traditional storage economics are not keeping pace with growing storage demands. And with virtualization projects causing huge increases in storage consumption, the age-old approach of “throwing hardware at the problem” is fatally flawed.
Kryder’s Law is no longer a valid solution to keeping storage costs in check – particularly when one considers the exotic and expensive hardware that is often required to achieve sufficient performance and availability in a virtualized environment. A far more practical solution lies in getting more out of existing and lower-cost off-the-shelf hardware through the use of device-independent storage virtualization software.
The time has never been better for SMEs to move forward into the brave new world of virtualization. But they need to understand that Old Man Kryder needs some help these days because he just doesn’t move as fast as he used to. He needs a healthy dose of storage virtualization software to get back his giddyup.
While the large-enterprise sector currently receives the lion’s share of the glitz, we all know that 95% of the economy is the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector. And, we also know that the SME sector is where the first shots of the hypervisor wars were fired, with Microsoft’s launch of Windows Server 2008.
What we have seen since then is a classic case study in why competition is a good thing for customers. VMware responded to Hyper-V with new SME-friendly products, and since then both companies have been “sweetening the deal” with even more attractive bundling and pricing of products and features. Thus, it’s no surprise that as we sit here in 2011, virtualization adoption in the SME market is skyrocketing.
But there is a rub – because while desktop and server virtualization technology costs have never been more appealing, ancillary costs have never been more daunting – particularly storage costs. Kryder’s Law, which states that storage density doubles every 13 months, was remarkably accurate until 2005. Since then, however, capacity gains have slowed and today one can expect no more than 30 or 40 percent annual gains in capacity at any given price-point.
What this means is that traditional storage economics are not keeping pace with growing storage demands. And with virtualization projects causing huge increases in storage consumption, the age-old approach of “throwing hardware at the problem” is fatally flawed.
Kryder’s Law is no longer a valid solution to keeping storage costs in check – particularly when one considers the exotic and expensive hardware that is often required to achieve sufficient performance and availability in a virtualized environment. A far more practical solution lies in getting more out of existing and lower-cost off-the-shelf hardware through the use of device-independent storage virtualization software.
The time has never been better for SMEs to move forward into the brave new world of virtualization. But they need to understand that Old Man Kryder needs some help these days because he just doesn’t move as fast as he used to. He needs a healthy dose of storage virtualization software to get back his giddyup.
Thursday, 7 April 2011
DataCore Software Receives Second Consecutive 5-Star Rating in CRN’s 2011 Partner Programs Guide
http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/What-Others-are-Saying/Awards.aspx
Annual guide and 5-Star designation identifies DataCore as having an exceptional vendor partner program
DataCore Software has been named to CRN’s 2011 Partner Programs Guide and has also been awarded a 5-Star Partner rating for the second straight year. CRN’s Partner Programs Guide and 5-Star Partner ratings serve as the definitive authority on vendors who have robust partner programs or products that service IT Channel solution providers. The annual 5-Star rating produced by Everything Channel recognizes the DataCore Partner Program as offering a program that provides the best possible partnering elements for channel success.
With its SANsymphony™-V next-generation storage virtualization software solution, DataCore makes it easy to address the essential storage dimension to virtualization, enabling solution providers to accelerate sales cycles, increase margins and address the lucrative and growing storage market. DataCore provides a compelling software advantage delivering hardware independence and cost saving benefits to storage in much the same way as VMware, Microsoft and Citrix software do to servers and desktops. Virtualization solution providers can easily leverage their virtual server and virtual desktop practices with a software solution that makes it practical to address the demanding storage needs – cost, performance and availability – of their virtualization projects.
DataCore also has strong partnerships with the software industry’s leading developers of virtualization technologies. These partnerships offer customers full featured, best-of-breed virtualized IT solutions across the entire data center. To read what resellers have to say about the value of selling SANsymphony-V, please see: Resellers Herald DataCore Software’s SANsymphony-V Solution for Making Storage Virtualization Practical for All. To view SANsymphony-V reseller video testimonials, please visit: What Virtualization Resellers Are Saying About SANsymphony-V.”
“The companies listed on the 2011 Partner Programs Guide represent the best channel programs in the market today. Of those, only a few get our 5-Star award, based on their commitment to the channel, breadth of program offerings and services offered to their partners,” said Kelley Damore, VP and Editorial Director, for Everything Channel’s CRN. “Each of these organizations understands that technology alone does not make for a successful channel program. By focusing on delivering a comprehensive partner program, vendors and solution providers can work together to drive business opportunities and revenue.”
DataCore has undertaken a major effort to streamline its Partner Program over the last two years to make it easier for partners to reap the rewards and benefits of featuring DataCore’s storage virtualization solutions among their product offerings. The 5-Star recognition from Everything Channel validates this partner-centric approach. DataCore’s Solution Advisor Resource Center includes a wealth of sales training and positioning tools and materials to help resellers and solution advisors grow their virtualization business with DataCore's storage virtualization solutions. To learn more, please visit: http://www.datacore.com/partner/resources/.
Annual guide and 5-Star designation identifies DataCore as having an exceptional vendor partner program DataCore Software has been named to CRN’s 2011 Partner Programs Guide and has also been awarded a 5-Star Partner rating for the second straight year. CRN’s Partner Programs Guide and 5-Star Partner ratings serve as the definitive authority on vendors who have robust partner programs or products that service IT Channel solution providers. The annual 5-Star rating produced by Everything Channel recognizes the DataCore Partner Program as offering a program that provides the best possible partnering elements for channel success.
With its SANsymphony™-V next-generation storage virtualization software solution, DataCore makes it easy to address the essential storage dimension to virtualization, enabling solution providers to accelerate sales cycles, increase margins and address the lucrative and growing storage market. DataCore provides a compelling software advantage delivering hardware independence and cost saving benefits to storage in much the same way as VMware, Microsoft and Citrix software do to servers and desktops. Virtualization solution providers can easily leverage their virtual server and virtual desktop practices with a software solution that makes it practical to address the demanding storage needs – cost, performance and availability – of their virtualization projects.
DataCore also has strong partnerships with the software industry’s leading developers of virtualization technologies. These partnerships offer customers full featured, best-of-breed virtualized IT solutions across the entire data center. To read what resellers have to say about the value of selling SANsymphony-V, please see: Resellers Herald DataCore Software’s SANsymphony-V Solution for Making Storage Virtualization Practical for All. To view SANsymphony-V reseller video testimonials, please visit: What Virtualization Resellers Are Saying About SANsymphony-V.”
“The companies listed on the 2011 Partner Programs Guide represent the best channel programs in the market today. Of those, only a few get our 5-Star award, based on their commitment to the channel, breadth of program offerings and services offered to their partners,” said Kelley Damore, VP and Editorial Director, for Everything Channel’s CRN. “Each of these organizations understands that technology alone does not make for a successful channel program. By focusing on delivering a comprehensive partner program, vendors and solution providers can work together to drive business opportunities and revenue.”
DataCore has undertaken a major effort to streamline its Partner Program over the last two years to make it easier for partners to reap the rewards and benefits of featuring DataCore’s storage virtualization solutions among their product offerings. The 5-Star recognition from Everything Channel validates this partner-centric approach. DataCore’s Solution Advisor Resource Center includes a wealth of sales training and positioning tools and materials to help resellers and solution advisors grow their virtualization business with DataCore's storage virtualization solutions. To learn more, please visit: http://www.datacore.com/partner/resources/.
Thursday, 24 March 2011
DataCore Adds NAS Head, High-Availability
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/03/22/datacore_sansymphony_v_nas_ha/
More tunes for SANsymphony-V
DataCore has added NAS acceleration and high-availability to its SANsymphony-V product.
The basic configuration is two mirrored servers. SANsymphony-V software runs in each server with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and its built-in NAS services, Hyper-V, and Microsoft's Clustered File Share functions, and provides a thinly-provisioned virtual block storage pool underneath them.
The storage media can be the server's own, direct-attached storage (DAS) or an external array. Hyper-V apps access files through the Cluster File Share subsystem and SANsymphony provides the block storage underpinnings of this.
Because the two servers are mirrored, one can act as the the failover target for the other. In normal operations both servers handle file requests through the clustered file system. SANsymphony-V's adaptive caching, with a virtual disk copy, provides a degree of NAS acceleration. This is not filer acceleration in the Avere or Alacritech senses though, as we understand it.
In larger systems the SANSymphony-V software can run in separate servers connected by iSCSI or Fibre Channel. DataCore says its NAS acceleration and high-availability features are cost-effective and scalable, and don't require "enterprise NAS hardware". Nor is expensive hardware required to provide the level of high availability offered by SANsymphony-V.
Existing DataCore SANsymphony-V customers, running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V, do not need to buy any extra software to support the clustered NAS file-sharing features. Snaphots and Continuous Data Protection are optionally available.
More tunes for SANsymphony-V
DataCore has added NAS acceleration and high-availability to its SANsymphony-V product.
The basic configuration is two mirrored servers. SANsymphony-V software runs in each server with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and its built-in NAS services, Hyper-V, and Microsoft's Clustered File Share functions, and provides a thinly-provisioned virtual block storage pool underneath them.
The storage media can be the server's own, direct-attached storage (DAS) or an external array. Hyper-V apps access files through the Cluster File Share subsystem and SANsymphony provides the block storage underpinnings of this.
Because the two servers are mirrored, one can act as the the failover target for the other. In normal operations both servers handle file requests through the clustered file system. SANsymphony-V's adaptive caching, with a virtual disk copy, provides a degree of NAS acceleration. This is not filer acceleration in the Avere or Alacritech senses though, as we understand it.
In larger systems the SANSymphony-V software can run in separate servers connected by iSCSI or Fibre Channel. DataCore says its NAS acceleration and high-availability features are cost-effective and scalable, and don't require "enterprise NAS hardware". Nor is expensive hardware required to provide the level of high availability offered by SANsymphony-V.
Existing DataCore SANsymphony-V customers, running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V, do not need to buy any extra software to support the clustered NAS file-sharing features. Snaphots and Continuous Data Protection are optionally available.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
DataCore Adds NAS Performance Acceleration and High-Availability File Sharing Support to SANsymphony-V Storage Virtualization Software
See full announcement at:
http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/03/18/datacore-adds-nas-performance-acceleration-and-high-availability-file-sharing-support-to-sansymphony-v-storage-virtualization-software.aspx
Announcement Background
DataCore Software is announcing that its SANsymphony™-V software addresses the three major roadblocks – cost, performance and business continuity – that have made it impractical for critical virtualization projects to utilize Network Attached Storage (NAS).
Why It Matters?
DataCore SANsymphony-V software can now address customer NAS requirements in addition to meeting their SAN needs.
Enterprise NAS hardware (High Performance, Highly Available, Highly Scalable) systems such as NetApp filers and EMC Isilon have been successful in larger data centers but due to their very expensive price points are not able to meet the needs of small and mid-size businesses. DataCore has addressed this dilemma with its SANsymphony-V storage virtualization software. The new development announced today employs standard Windows servers with off-the-shelf disks to achieve the required levels of uninterrupted shared file services at a reasonable price. Moreover, these systems now scale to performance levels once achieved only by “enterprise” NAS hardware.
Quotes --
Jeff Boles, senior analyst and director of validation services, Taneja Group:
“SANsymphony-V can be easily configured to significantly accelerate performance and add a new level of data protection to Microsoft’s Clustered File Shares. This resulting combination of SANsymphony-V and Microsoft is additive; it is simple to set up, requires no additional purchases and best of all it allows organizations to meet both their NAS and SAN requirements from one virtual infrastructure.”
John Bocskor, vice president of product management, DataCore Software:
“Unlike other attempts at converged SAN/NAS, the DataCore approach optimizes each layer for what it does best, yet both are managed from the familiar Windows Server administration console via a user-friendly interface with self-guided wizards.”
Key points --
Existing DataCore SANsymphony-V customers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V do not need to buy additional software to support the clustered NAS file sharing features. For those new to DataCore, SANsymphony-V software, including the NAS capabilities, can be professionally installed through DataCore-authorized solution providers across the globe.
More info at: http://www.datacore.com/Software/Features/high-availability-nas-cluster-file-sharing.aspx
Or: See DataCore at Microsoft Management Summit 2011
Microsoft Management Summit 2011 runs March 21-25 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Please visit DataCore in Booth 529.
Economical NAS extensions to its comprehensive SAN software target non-stop NFS/CIFS requirements in server and desktop virtualization rollouts
Enterprise-class NAS with No Premium-priced Specialty NAS Hardware Required
Prior to DataCore’s breakthrough, virtual data center managers concerned with single points of failures in their vital NFS/CIFS files shares had few alternatives. They could either pick from a few specialty devices that provided the needed redundancy at a steep price, or take the risk that a storage-related disruption would cripple their entire virtual infrastructure. Those without the required funding have little choice but to postpone virtualizing their more important applications.
The new development announced today employs standard Windows servers with off-the-shelf disks to achieve the required levels of uninterrupted shared file services at a reasonable price. Moreover, these systems now scale to performance levels once achieved only by ‘enterprise” NAS hardware.
DataCore’s novel design employs mirrored copies of the SANsymphony-V software layered beneath clustered file shares (NAS) integral to Windows Servers 2008 Enterprise. Any standard storage device can be used for disk space, ranging from the basic internal hard drives packaged by the server manufacturers, to bigger external disk arrays offered by the popular storage systems vendors.
Two High Availability/High Performance Configurations to Choose From
The versatile software combination can be fielded in two high availability arrangements based on the scale of the file shares.
Customers who start small and later outgrow the two servers can simply reassign their DataCore software licenses to the two additional servers. Incremental capacity licenses may also be added at any time to cover expansion.
Available Now
Existing DataCore SANsymphony-V customers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V do not need to buy additional software to support the clustered NAS file sharing features. For those new to DataCore, SANsymphony-V software, including the NAS capabilities, can be professionally installed through DataCore-authorized solution providers across the globe.
http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/03/18/datacore-adds-nas-performance-acceleration-and-high-availability-file-sharing-support-to-sansymphony-v-storage-virtualization-software.aspx
Announcement Background
DataCore Software is announcing that its SANsymphony™-V software addresses the three major roadblocks – cost, performance and business continuity – that have made it impractical for critical virtualization projects to utilize Network Attached Storage (NAS).
Why It Matters?
DataCore SANsymphony-V software can now address customer NAS requirements in addition to meeting their SAN needs.
Enterprise NAS hardware (High Performance, Highly Available, Highly Scalable) systems such as NetApp filers and EMC Isilon have been successful in larger data centers but due to their very expensive price points are not able to meet the needs of small and mid-size businesses. DataCore has addressed this dilemma with its SANsymphony-V storage virtualization software. The new development announced today employs standard Windows servers with off-the-shelf disks to achieve the required levels of uninterrupted shared file services at a reasonable price. Moreover, these systems now scale to performance levels once achieved only by “enterprise” NAS hardware.
Quotes --
Jeff Boles, senior analyst and director of validation services, Taneja Group:
“SANsymphony-V can be easily configured to significantly accelerate performance and add a new level of data protection to Microsoft’s Clustered File Shares. This resulting combination of SANsymphony-V and Microsoft is additive; it is simple to set up, requires no additional purchases and best of all it allows organizations to meet both their NAS and SAN requirements from one virtual infrastructure.”
John Bocskor, vice president of product management, DataCore Software:
“Unlike other attempts at converged SAN/NAS, the DataCore approach optimizes each layer for what it does best, yet both are managed from the familiar Windows Server administration console via a user-friendly interface with self-guided wizards.”
Key points --
- SANsymphony-V overcomes shared storage shortcomings and makes it feasible to employ the widely used NAS services already built into the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 platform in those environments.
- DataCore’s powerful feature set can be easily configured to enhance these Microsoft services. The integrated combination cost-effectively speeds up performance and adds a new level of fault tolerance to clustered network file system (NFS) and common Internet file system (CIFS) sharing.
- The new solution is particularly well-suited for IT organizations that prefer to store their VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenDesktop virtual machine images under NFS or CIFS. Many of them are eager to eliminate bottlenecks and disruptions in their underlying storage systems, but not willing to spend a lot of money doing it.
Existing DataCore SANsymphony-V customers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V do not need to buy additional software to support the clustered NAS file sharing features. For those new to DataCore, SANsymphony-V software, including the NAS capabilities, can be professionally installed through DataCore-authorized solution providers across the globe.
More info at: http://www.datacore.com/Software/Features/high-availability-nas-cluster-file-sharing.aspx
Or: See DataCore at Microsoft Management Summit 2011
Microsoft Management Summit 2011 runs March 21-25 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Please visit DataCore in Booth 529.
Economical NAS extensions to its comprehensive SAN software target non-stop NFS/CIFS requirements in server and desktop virtualization rollouts
Enterprise-class NAS with No Premium-priced Specialty NAS Hardware Required
Prior to DataCore’s breakthrough, virtual data center managers concerned with single points of failures in their vital NFS/CIFS files shares had few alternatives. They could either pick from a few specialty devices that provided the needed redundancy at a steep price, or take the risk that a storage-related disruption would cripple their entire virtual infrastructure. Those without the required funding have little choice but to postpone virtualizing their more important applications.
The new development announced today employs standard Windows servers with off-the-shelf disks to achieve the required levels of uninterrupted shared file services at a reasonable price. Moreover, these systems now scale to performance levels once achieved only by ‘enterprise” NAS hardware.
DataCore’s novel design employs mirrored copies of the SANsymphony-V software layered beneath clustered file shares (NAS) integral to Windows Servers 2008 Enterprise. Any standard storage device can be used for disk space, ranging from the basic internal hard drives packaged by the server manufacturers, to bigger external disk arrays offered by the popular storage systems vendors.
Two High Availability/High Performance Configurations to Choose From
The versatile software combination can be fielded in two high availability arrangements based on the scale of the file shares.
- In the smallest configuration, the DataCore software co-resides with the clustered file share functions on each of two (2) redundant Windows Enterprise servers. SANsymphony-V performs adaptive I/O caching directly on top of Hyper-V to speed up block disk access while mirroring updates to the other server’s virtual disk copy. All disk space is thin provisioned to maximize utilization. Snapshots and Continuous Data Protection (CDP) can be turned on for added protection helping customers recover from events like ‘virus attacks’ and inadvertent deletions.
During normal operation both servers actively handle file requests. Should one of the two systems fail or temporarily be removed from service, the surviving machine transparently takes over all duties using the mirrored disk copy. Then when the idle machine is put back into action, the system automatically returns to its original active-active state.
- For larger environments, the file share cluster remains split across two machines, while the DataCore software runs on two separate servers dedicated to block storage virtualization. The cluster then accesses the DataCore virtual storage pool over an iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN.
Customers who start small and later outgrow the two servers can simply reassign their DataCore software licenses to the two additional servers. Incremental capacity licenses may also be added at any time to cover expansion.
Available Now
Existing DataCore SANsymphony-V customers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V do not need to buy additional software to support the clustered NAS file sharing features. For those new to DataCore, SANsymphony-V software, including the NAS capabilities, can be professionally installed through DataCore-authorized solution providers across the globe.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Channel EMEA: Resellers acknowledge DataCore’s SANsymphony-V virtualisation solution
http://www.channelemea.com/spip.php?article3954
John Greenwood, Solution Sales Director of UK based Gold Partner, NCE Group, explains more: “We have been selling DataCore for over seven years to customers spanning across many verticals. The launch of SANsymphony-V is very exciting and offers a different story for us to promote, it focuses on automation and simplicity and provides new features, opening up new opportunities and new customers for us to capitalize on and take forward.”
“Few firms can afford the unanticipated expense of the storage ‘rip and replace’ that they believe their server or desktop virtualisation projects will require. The good news is that an affordable solution is available in the form of storage virtualisation, as demonstrated by industry leader DataCore Software. Their flagship technology, SANsymphony-V, is just what the doctor ordered for simplifying capacity management, performance management and data protection management behind virtual server infrastructure,” says Jon Toigo, CEO of Toigo Partners International.
To help new resellers get started on how they can accelerate their virtualization deals and extend their virtualization practices, visit: www.datacore.com/Partners/Become-a-Partner/Sales-Resources.aspx .
John Greenwood, Solution Sales Director of UK based Gold Partner, NCE Group, explains more: “We have been selling DataCore for over seven years to customers spanning across many verticals. The launch of SANsymphony-V is very exciting and offers a different story for us to promote, it focuses on automation and simplicity and provides new features, opening up new opportunities and new customers for us to capitalize on and take forward.”
“Few firms can afford the unanticipated expense of the storage ‘rip and replace’ that they believe their server or desktop virtualisation projects will require. The good news is that an affordable solution is available in the form of storage virtualisation, as demonstrated by industry leader DataCore Software. Their flagship technology, SANsymphony-V, is just what the doctor ordered for simplifying capacity management, performance management and data protection management behind virtual server infrastructure,” says Jon Toigo, CEO of Toigo Partners International.
To help new resellers get started on how they can accelerate their virtualization deals and extend their virtualization practices, visit: www.datacore.com/Partners/Become-a-Partner/Sales-Resources.aspx .
Saturday, 19 March 2011
DataCore SANsymphony™-V software ushers in a new era for virtualization solution providers
"The good news is that an affordable solution is available in the form of storage virtualization, as demonstrated by industry leader DataCore Software. Their flagship technology, SANsymphony-V, is just what the doctor ordered for simplifying capacity management, performance management and data protection management behind virtual server infrastructure.” -Jon Toigo
Resellers Proclaim: DataCore’s Virtualization Software Makes it Profitable to Leverage Existing Virtualization Practices and Software Advantages to Capture a ‘Bigger Share’ of Storage Deals
Value-added resellers and virtualization solution providers who are now offering SANsymphony-V software are able to address all the dimensions of infrastructure virtualization by:
- Taking their virtualization practices beyond server and desktops to include the storage dimension;
- Growing VMware, Microsoft and Citrix deals by leveraging their sales and services teams with a similar virtualization software approach delivering equally compelling benefits to storage;
- Overcoming the major storage-related obstacles stalling virtual server and desktop deals; and
- Empowering customers with the economic advantages of a software-based storage infrastructure.
“With DataCore SANsymphony-V, the user interface is significantly improved and things are more intuitive,” notes Andy Judge, founder and CEO, Grove Networks. “Essentially what used to take three steps now takes one. It is far easier to use and far easier to manage. Apart from the ease-of-use, of great interest to our customers will be the high-availability SANsymphony-V delivers as well as the ability to choose whatever type of hardware they would like to use in the back-end. The fact that customers have the freedom to use whatever hardware is efficient for their company is a significant benefit – enabling them to avoid vendor lock-in.”
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Taneja Group: Building the Virtual Infrastructure with DataCore SANsymphony-V
There's a ball and chain hanging on your virtualization projects - and it's that pesky storage stuff. Storage that isn't flexible, can't adapt to changes, is wrapped with poor provisioning practices, and where sheer physicality and lack of abstraction seem to get in the way of every virtual server task. There's no secret in the fact we think storage virtualization can set the virtual infrastructure free, but let's take a look at one vendor's product, and how it tackles some of those issues in the Hyper-V infrastructure.
http://tanejagroup.com/profiles-reports/request/building-the-virtual-infrastructure-with-datacore-sansymphony-v
http://tanejagroup.com/profiles-reports/request/building-the-virtual-infrastructure-with-datacore-sansymphony-v
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
A Virtual Reality Check by Jon Toigo
http://www.drunkendata.com/?p=3299
Hate to say it, but I told you so. According to several surveys of businesses that have crossed my transom over the past few weeks, it would appear that a disproportionate number of server virtualization projects have stalled when they were less than 20% complete. The problem is simple and consistent: filled with the hype of the hypervisor vendors, planners leapt into the virtual abyss before they looked at the real costs associated with the strategy.
We were all told that all that this virtualization thing was going to cost was a basic hypervisor software license – a cost readily offset by reductions in the numbers of physical servers and their associated labor and energy expense. Then, it became evident that we needed the other licenses – those providing all of the cool features that were described in the brochure but not included on the Dell, HP or other server we bought. Then, we needed to get our staff trained as “vSphere Engineers” or something – an additional expense. Then, we discovered that consolidating all of those guests onto fewer servers required significant changes to our network cable infrastructure…and, ultimately, to our storage infrastructure.
Storage is the big part of the cost iceberg, submerged beneath the waterline of our virtualization vision, out of view and ready to sink our most unsinkable project plans. When the costs to reinvent storage became evident, especially the requirement to “forklift upgrade” our fibre channel fabrics, the captain called a “full stop” to our virtualization journey. In the aftermath, there was much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth as the reality of virtualization collided with the business case.
The story probably won’t stop here, of course. Most firms are hiring in the consultants and pouring over their budgets to determine what can be salvaged to realize the gains of server – and later desktop – virtualization without becoming the next James Cameron epic in the process.
One solution worth considering carefully comes in the form of storage virtualization technology recently announced by DataCore Software: a product by the unassuming name of SANsymphony-V. DataCore already enjoys a broad install base in Europe, where firms seemed to cotton to the ideas of abstracting software from array controllers as a cost-containment measure years before the idea caught on in the US market. SANsympony-V, however, is more than a new version of a DataCore product – it is a comprehensive reworking of both the underlying platform and the presentation layer that has succeeded in elevating the product from “nice-to-have” to “must-have” status, especially for companies confronting the big stall in their server and desktop virtualization projects.
The original case for storage virtualization remains just as valid and compelling as ever. SANsymphony-V enables you to pool your storage rigs then serve up volumes to any application that requires them. The interface for allocating volumes is much improved. Wizard-driven and resembling more than anything else the latest Microsoft Office software GUI, you discover your storage and servers, then simply drag volume icons onto servers (or guest machines) to establish the connection between them. Since all I/O is serviced from a cache memory layer, storage response is 3 to 5 times faster. Plus, I/O paths are remembered by SANsymphony-V and traffic is load-balanced across available connections automatically.
Plus, thin provisioning (a concept invented by DataCore) is provided to ease the burden of capacity management. Logical volumes reflect maximum available capacity (or any capacity you choose), but actual resources aren’t provided from the storage pool until they are needed. That’s across all disk in the pool, not just a stand of spindles attached to a proprietary array controller featuring thin provisioning software. Big difference that, both in terms of efficacy and cost.
Data protection services are also universal. If you want continuous data protection in the form of write logging, to protect against a data corruption event, simply tick a box next to the virtual volume you have allocated. You have a granular log of writes that you can rewind to before a corruption event has occurred to back out any bad data.
And, of course, DataCore continues to provide synchronous mirroring and snap shots to protect against localized equipment or facility disasters. The key difference is that their mirrors and snaps can be done amongst and between any hardware regardless of brand! For regional disasters, SANsymphony-V provides a robust asynchronous replication capability over distance – with full failover and fail back capabilities.
DataCore also rescues stalled virtualization projects by delivering the means to synchronously replicate guest machine data behind any host server, which solves the problem of hypervisor clustering that shares nothing…except storage. And you don’t need to wait for your storage vendor to getting around to supporting the new APIs from the hypervisor vendor, including vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). The primitives for offloading functions like replication are built in to the volumes your provision via SANsymphony-V.
Bottom line: the big problem stalling server virtualization projects is storage. The fix is SANsymphony-V. Check it out.
Hate to say it, but I told you so. According to several surveys of businesses that have crossed my transom over the past few weeks, it would appear that a disproportionate number of server virtualization projects have stalled when they were less than 20% complete. The problem is simple and consistent: filled with the hype of the hypervisor vendors, planners leapt into the virtual abyss before they looked at the real costs associated with the strategy.
We were all told that all that this virtualization thing was going to cost was a basic hypervisor software license – a cost readily offset by reductions in the numbers of physical servers and their associated labor and energy expense. Then, it became evident that we needed the other licenses – those providing all of the cool features that were described in the brochure but not included on the Dell, HP or other server we bought. Then, we needed to get our staff trained as “vSphere Engineers” or something – an additional expense. Then, we discovered that consolidating all of those guests onto fewer servers required significant changes to our network cable infrastructure…and, ultimately, to our storage infrastructure.
Storage is the big part of the cost iceberg, submerged beneath the waterline of our virtualization vision, out of view and ready to sink our most unsinkable project plans. When the costs to reinvent storage became evident, especially the requirement to “forklift upgrade” our fibre channel fabrics, the captain called a “full stop” to our virtualization journey. In the aftermath, there was much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth as the reality of virtualization collided with the business case.
The story probably won’t stop here, of course. Most firms are hiring in the consultants and pouring over their budgets to determine what can be salvaged to realize the gains of server – and later desktop – virtualization without becoming the next James Cameron epic in the process.
One solution worth considering carefully comes in the form of storage virtualization technology recently announced by DataCore Software: a product by the unassuming name of SANsymphony-V. DataCore already enjoys a broad install base in Europe, where firms seemed to cotton to the ideas of abstracting software from array controllers as a cost-containment measure years before the idea caught on in the US market. SANsympony-V, however, is more than a new version of a DataCore product – it is a comprehensive reworking of both the underlying platform and the presentation layer that has succeeded in elevating the product from “nice-to-have” to “must-have” status, especially for companies confronting the big stall in their server and desktop virtualization projects.
The original case for storage virtualization remains just as valid and compelling as ever. SANsymphony-V enables you to pool your storage rigs then serve up volumes to any application that requires them. The interface for allocating volumes is much improved. Wizard-driven and resembling more than anything else the latest Microsoft Office software GUI, you discover your storage and servers, then simply drag volume icons onto servers (or guest machines) to establish the connection between them. Since all I/O is serviced from a cache memory layer, storage response is 3 to 5 times faster. Plus, I/O paths are remembered by SANsymphony-V and traffic is load-balanced across available connections automatically.
Plus, thin provisioning (a concept invented by DataCore) is provided to ease the burden of capacity management. Logical volumes reflect maximum available capacity (or any capacity you choose), but actual resources aren’t provided from the storage pool until they are needed. That’s across all disk in the pool, not just a stand of spindles attached to a proprietary array controller featuring thin provisioning software. Big difference that, both in terms of efficacy and cost.
Data protection services are also universal. If you want continuous data protection in the form of write logging, to protect against a data corruption event, simply tick a box next to the virtual volume you have allocated. You have a granular log of writes that you can rewind to before a corruption event has occurred to back out any bad data.
And, of course, DataCore continues to provide synchronous mirroring and snap shots to protect against localized equipment or facility disasters. The key difference is that their mirrors and snaps can be done amongst and between any hardware regardless of brand! For regional disasters, SANsymphony-V provides a robust asynchronous replication capability over distance – with full failover and fail back capabilities.
DataCore also rescues stalled virtualization projects by delivering the means to synchronously replicate guest machine data behind any host server, which solves the problem of hypervisor clustering that shares nothing…except storage. And you don’t need to wait for your storage vendor to getting around to supporting the new APIs from the hypervisor vendor, including vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). The primitives for offloading functions like replication are built in to the volumes your provision via SANsymphony-V.
Bottom line: the big problem stalling server virtualization projects is storage. The fix is SANsymphony-V. Check it out.
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Bright, Shiny Things for Storage Managers; The tools for building a strategic storage infrastructure are available to intelligent consumers.
Enterprise Systems - Jon toigo
I tested SANsymphony-V recently and found several assertions by the vendor to be absolutely true. First, the allocation of storage to servers is simple: once storage is pooled, just drag the storage icon over to the relevant server icon in the GUI and you're basically done. A logical, thinly-provisioned disk is provided to the server and its apps or guest machines. Moreover, DataCore keeps track of the paths that are being used for data traversing between the storage and the server/apps and auto load-balances traffic to avoid latency.
I can testify to the fact that storage I/O experiences a 3-5x performance bump when SANsymphony-V is managing it, primarily because all reads and writes are cached -- so I/O works at memory speeds and not at the speed of spinning rust...
Bright, Shiny Things for Storage Managers
http://esj.com/Articles/2011/03/01/Bright-Shiny-Things-for-Storage-Managers.aspx?Page=4
When designing storage infrastructure architecture to achieve efficiency, performance, cost-containment, scalability, and ease of management, it is easy to become distracted by the latest announcements from brand name vendors -- the "bright, shiny things" phenomenon. Like clockwork, every six months vendors insist on rolling out a new feature that they hope will differentiate their commodity wares from their competitors'. It can be a real task to separate the important technological developments from those that cater to the "storage is just an accessory for my iPod" attitudes of certain segments of the marketplace at any given time.
New Stand-out Products
Certain things need to be done close to the disk to guarantee performance, resiliency, and bang for the buck. Most other "storage functions" need to be done off array -- delivered as shareable services across infrastructure broadly rather than being dedicated to a single stand of disk drives.
My friends over at Xiotech understand this, as do those at DataCore Software. Each company has recently announced new products with all the ruffles and flourishes of a "shiny new thing" -- but which stand out in my view as truly strategic.
DataCore’s Virtual Storage Controller
If I am not buying thin provisioning on the rig, where do I get it? DataCore Software's latest product, SANsymphony-V may provide an answer.
Last month, the Ft. Lauderdale storage virtualization software maker announced its new flagship product, which combines the best of its previous generation products into one easy-to-use "virtual storage controller" that works with Xiotech's (as well as everyone else's) storage hardware with hand-in-glove simplicity.
SANsymphony-V takes little knowledge of storage to deploy and configure. Wizards and extensive layman's language help, on a graphical user interface similar to the latest Microsoft Office products, discover storage assets and combine them effortlessly into managed pools. The software provides a platform for doing most of the things with capacity management, performance management, and data protection management that need to be done to maintain a storage infrastructure at business-ready service levels.
Only using SANsymphony-V, functionality such as thin provisioning (which the company invented, by the way) isn't isolated to a single hardware rig; it is a service extensible to all capacity in the infrastructure regardless of whose name is on the bezel of each rig. In effect, software value-add that need not be joined at the hip to proprietary array controllers is hosted instead on the storage virtualization layer created by SANsymphony-V, where it can be shared effectively and simply, and implemented readily for any application that needs it.
I tested SANsymphony-V recently and found several assertions by the vendor to be absolutely true. First, the allocation of storage to servers is simple: once storage is pooled, just drag the storage icon over to the relevant server icon in the GUI and you're basically done. A logical, thinly-provisioned disk is provided to the server and its apps or guest machines. Moreover, DataCore keeps track of the paths that are being used for data traversing between the storage and the server/apps and auto load-balances traffic to avoid latency.
I can testify to the fact that storage I/O experiences a 3-5x performance bump when SANsymphony-V is managing it, primarily because all reads and writes are cached -- so I/O works at memory speeds and not at the speed of spinning rust. The practical ramifications of this are several: for one, the overall speed of infrastructure is not determined by the slowest spindle. For another, older gear can be kept in service longer, even as newer and speedier disk is added to infrastructure, which helps to bend the storage cost curve. Best of all, brand doesn't matter. You can build a better infrastructure with the combination of Xiotech ISE and DataCore Software than you can with most of the available brand-name rigs from the standpoint of resiliency, manageability, value-add service sharing, performance, and labor.
I/O caching and pooling also mean that functions such as data replication (even across different brand rigs), tiering, and other functions are a snap to implement. You want continuous data protection to safeguard a volume against a data corruption event? Easy -- just tick the check box on that volume as presented by SANsymphony-V and every write made to the volume is logged, enabling you to fail back to an earlier time before the corruption event occurred. Want high availability? Easy -- just mirror data synchronously between two or more volumes on different rigs in the same room or the same metro area network. Concerned about CNN-style disasters? Asynchronous replication and snapshotting -- even between heterogeneous hardware -- is readily provided.
Bottom line: the tools for building a strategic storage infrastructure are available to intelligent consumers. Fortunately for all of us, intelligence is becoming the new meme as cost-containment initiatives get into full swing.
Enterprise Systems Video: DataCore Software Benchmarks VDI in the Real World (Interview with Ziya Aral)
http://esj.com/articles/2011/02/22/video-datacore-software-benchmarks.aspx
DataCore Software takes a very different approach to benchmarking VDI.
I tested SANsymphony-V recently and found several assertions by the vendor to be absolutely true. First, the allocation of storage to servers is simple: once storage is pooled, just drag the storage icon over to the relevant server icon in the GUI and you're basically done. A logical, thinly-provisioned disk is provided to the server and its apps or guest machines. Moreover, DataCore keeps track of the paths that are being used for data traversing between the storage and the server/apps and auto load-balances traffic to avoid latency.
I can testify to the fact that storage I/O experiences a 3-5x performance bump when SANsymphony-V is managing it, primarily because all reads and writes are cached -- so I/O works at memory speeds and not at the speed of spinning rust...
Bright, Shiny Things for Storage Managers
http://esj.com/Articles/2011/03/01/Bright-Shiny-Things-for-Storage-Managers.aspx?Page=4
When designing storage infrastructure architecture to achieve efficiency, performance, cost-containment, scalability, and ease of management, it is easy to become distracted by the latest announcements from brand name vendors -- the "bright, shiny things" phenomenon. Like clockwork, every six months vendors insist on rolling out a new feature that they hope will differentiate their commodity wares from their competitors'. It can be a real task to separate the important technological developments from those that cater to the "storage is just an accessory for my iPod" attitudes of certain segments of the marketplace at any given time.
New Stand-out Products
Certain things need to be done close to the disk to guarantee performance, resiliency, and bang for the buck. Most other "storage functions" need to be done off array -- delivered as shareable services across infrastructure broadly rather than being dedicated to a single stand of disk drives.
My friends over at Xiotech understand this, as do those at DataCore Software. Each company has recently announced new products with all the ruffles and flourishes of a "shiny new thing" -- but which stand out in my view as truly strategic.
DataCore’s Virtual Storage Controller
If I am not buying thin provisioning on the rig, where do I get it? DataCore Software's latest product, SANsymphony-V may provide an answer.
Last month, the Ft. Lauderdale storage virtualization software maker announced its new flagship product, which combines the best of its previous generation products into one easy-to-use "virtual storage controller" that works with Xiotech's (as well as everyone else's) storage hardware with hand-in-glove simplicity.
SANsymphony-V takes little knowledge of storage to deploy and configure. Wizards and extensive layman's language help, on a graphical user interface similar to the latest Microsoft Office products, discover storage assets and combine them effortlessly into managed pools. The software provides a platform for doing most of the things with capacity management, performance management, and data protection management that need to be done to maintain a storage infrastructure at business-ready service levels.
Only using SANsymphony-V, functionality such as thin provisioning (which the company invented, by the way) isn't isolated to a single hardware rig; it is a service extensible to all capacity in the infrastructure regardless of whose name is on the bezel of each rig. In effect, software value-add that need not be joined at the hip to proprietary array controllers is hosted instead on the storage virtualization layer created by SANsymphony-V, where it can be shared effectively and simply, and implemented readily for any application that needs it.
I tested SANsymphony-V recently and found several assertions by the vendor to be absolutely true. First, the allocation of storage to servers is simple: once storage is pooled, just drag the storage icon over to the relevant server icon in the GUI and you're basically done. A logical, thinly-provisioned disk is provided to the server and its apps or guest machines. Moreover, DataCore keeps track of the paths that are being used for data traversing between the storage and the server/apps and auto load-balances traffic to avoid latency.
I can testify to the fact that storage I/O experiences a 3-5x performance bump when SANsymphony-V is managing it, primarily because all reads and writes are cached -- so I/O works at memory speeds and not at the speed of spinning rust. The practical ramifications of this are several: for one, the overall speed of infrastructure is not determined by the slowest spindle. For another, older gear can be kept in service longer, even as newer and speedier disk is added to infrastructure, which helps to bend the storage cost curve. Best of all, brand doesn't matter. You can build a better infrastructure with the combination of Xiotech ISE and DataCore Software than you can with most of the available brand-name rigs from the standpoint of resiliency, manageability, value-add service sharing, performance, and labor.
I/O caching and pooling also mean that functions such as data replication (even across different brand rigs), tiering, and other functions are a snap to implement. You want continuous data protection to safeguard a volume against a data corruption event? Easy -- just tick the check box on that volume as presented by SANsymphony-V and every write made to the volume is logged, enabling you to fail back to an earlier time before the corruption event occurred. Want high availability? Easy -- just mirror data synchronously between two or more volumes on different rigs in the same room or the same metro area network. Concerned about CNN-style disasters? Asynchronous replication and snapshotting -- even between heterogeneous hardware -- is readily provided.
Bottom line: the tools for building a strategic storage infrastructure are available to intelligent consumers. Fortunately for all of us, intelligence is becoming the new meme as cost-containment initiatives get into full swing.
Enterprise Systems Video: DataCore Software Benchmarks VDI in the Real World (Interview with Ziya Aral)
http://esj.com/articles/2011/02/22/video-datacore-software-benchmarks.aspx
DataCore Software takes a very different approach to benchmarking VDI.
Monday, 7 March 2011
Virtual Strategy Magazine: Q&A with George Teixeira of DataCore Software
http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2011/01/31/qa-george-teixeira-datacore-software?page=0,0
"SANsymphony-V lets you do more with what you already have. Playing off of our musical theme – it orchestrates, tunes, and harmonizes your inflexible storage devices into a dynamic symphony."
VSM: How is DataCore solving this “Big Problem” in server and desktop virtualization projects?
GT: DataCore is all about storage virtualization, and virtualization is all about applying the advantages of software to cut costs and insulate applications and users from disruptive changes and business risks. Unless the storage assets are virtualized, no server or desktop virtualization project can be considered complete. The business benefits of a stable software infrastructure spanning multiple manufacturers and models across generations of hardware are as compelling for storage environments as they are for servers and desktops. In fact, we think every virtualization strategy must be three dimensional, considering and planning for each server, storage, and desktop virtualization.
The storage problem – its high cost, inadequate performance, inflexibility, vendor lock in – is and remains the “Big Problem” in server and desktop virtualization projects. DataCore solves that problem. We’ve built a software platform that’s open and “future-proof.” It adapts over time, endures over generations of hardware, and enables customers to virtualize their entire storage infrastructure. Customers can repurpose and use existing resources more efficiently and choose lower-cost alternatives when adding or purchasing new resources. They get a stronger, more flexible infrastructure with far greater performance, availability, and redundancy. DataCore is the critical storage virtualization software layer that solves the “Big Problem,” making server and desktop virtualization projects successful.
VSM: Tell us about your new product, SANsymphony-V.
GT: Today we’re launching our SANsymphony-V product, a next-generation storage virtualization software solution. SANsymphony-V eliminates the difficult and costly storage-related barriers to desktop and server customers’ virtualization initiatives. It allows customers to use existing equipment and conventional storage devices to achieve the robust and responsive shared storage environment necessary to support highly dynamic virtual IT environments. This contrasts sharply with the budget busting “rip and replace” approaches traditionally being proposed by storage hardware vendors to support desktop and server virtualization projects.
SANsymphony-V lets you do more with what you already have. Playing off of our musical theme – it orchestrates, tunes, and harmonizes your inflexible storage devices into a dynamic symphony. The “V”, by the way, in SANsymphony-V stands for virtualization.
VSM: What are the most compelling user benefits for SANsymphony-V?
GT: The most important benefit of a software-based approach to storage infrastructure is that it enables customers toget more from whatever storage they use, repurpose existing equipment, and extend its useful life. Therefore, SANsymphony-V helps businesses maximize ROI, minimize costs, and mitigate their risks. Just as importantly, it boosts productivity through its modern and intuitive storage management making it much easier to automate tasks and manage storage resources efficiently within any virtual infrastructure (server and/or desktop).
SANsymphony-V also includes a number of advances to better safeguard workloads and avoid disruptions, including integrated continuous data protection (CDP), multi-site recovery, and high-speed and traffic compressing replication.
VSM: What are the differentiating elements of the DataCore model/approach compared to other solutions on the market? For example, what are the differentiating factors in SANsymphony-V?
GT: In addition to what I have already stated, the main difference arises because DataCore is virtualization software for storage. Unlike vendors who claim to offer “virtualization” from within their storage arrays, DataCore permits users to leverage their existing storage that they have already deployed, while enhancing it with infrastructure-wide features that span many different storage devices from many different vendors. Most importantly, the virtual software infrastructure lives beyond the life of these storage devices which come and go over time.
No one would ever dream of throwing away Exchange or VMware because the server on which it was running became obsolete. Yet, this is what the storage industry has been forcing customers to do with their storage for years – junking their entire investment each time they need to replace, grow or upgrade their storage solutions. DataCore gives customers the power to reject this costly approach by offering both the shared storage required to implement virtual infrastructures and the comfort of knowing that their storage investments will continue to work for them for many years to come.
VSM: What are the future challenges in this market and how does DataCore intend to respond?
GT: For storage virtualization, I see three driving forces: the move to greater commoditization of hardware, the need to better consolidate the use of resources, and the need to drive down people costs. Every CIO I have visited recently is focused on the cost equation and getting higher productivity. DataCore makes commoditization practical, while providing performance and functionality. We allow multiple storage types and existing storage to be consolidated to maximize storage asset utilization. Our software greatly automates storage management and the administrative tasks associated with storing information across many systems.
Another key driver for storage virtualization is the increase in server and desktop virtualization products like those from VMware, Citrix, and Microsoft. They drive the need for a lot more storage. When you only had individual servers, you would use the attached captive disks installed in the server. With server virtualization products, you need virtual infrastructure storage, which can be provided to one server, many servers, or a farm of servers. A lot more capacity and flexibility is required, and there’s typically a lot more performance load on those virtualized servers. Because of DataCore’s scalability and performance, our storage virtualization may help foster an even faster rate of adoption of combined, large-scale server and storage virtualization infrastructures. It’s an interesting cycle; server virtualization drives more storage and performance requirements, thereby driving the need for powerful storage virtualization.
We’ve done a great job of virtualizing storage and companies like VMware and Microsoft have done a great job of virtualizing servers, but there’s a lot more to be gained by building an infrastructure that includes both. Many of our customers have already combined these two technologies, and I see this trend continuing. We work with our partners and vendors like VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix so that our combined virtual capabilities work well together within end-user environments.
"SANsymphony-V lets you do more with what you already have. Playing off of our musical theme – it orchestrates, tunes, and harmonizes your inflexible storage devices into a dynamic symphony."
VSM: How is DataCore solving this “Big Problem” in server and desktop virtualization projects?
GT: DataCore is all about storage virtualization, and virtualization is all about applying the advantages of software to cut costs and insulate applications and users from disruptive changes and business risks. Unless the storage assets are virtualized, no server or desktop virtualization project can be considered complete. The business benefits of a stable software infrastructure spanning multiple manufacturers and models across generations of hardware are as compelling for storage environments as they are for servers and desktops. In fact, we think every virtualization strategy must be three dimensional, considering and planning for each server, storage, and desktop virtualization.
The storage problem – its high cost, inadequate performance, inflexibility, vendor lock in – is and remains the “Big Problem” in server and desktop virtualization projects. DataCore solves that problem. We’ve built a software platform that’s open and “future-proof.” It adapts over time, endures over generations of hardware, and enables customers to virtualize their entire storage infrastructure. Customers can repurpose and use existing resources more efficiently and choose lower-cost alternatives when adding or purchasing new resources. They get a stronger, more flexible infrastructure with far greater performance, availability, and redundancy. DataCore is the critical storage virtualization software layer that solves the “Big Problem,” making server and desktop virtualization projects successful.
VSM: Tell us about your new product, SANsymphony-V.
GT: Today we’re launching our SANsymphony-V product, a next-generation storage virtualization software solution. SANsymphony-V eliminates the difficult and costly storage-related barriers to desktop and server customers’ virtualization initiatives. It allows customers to use existing equipment and conventional storage devices to achieve the robust and responsive shared storage environment necessary to support highly dynamic virtual IT environments. This contrasts sharply with the budget busting “rip and replace” approaches traditionally being proposed by storage hardware vendors to support desktop and server virtualization projects.
SANsymphony-V lets you do more with what you already have. Playing off of our musical theme – it orchestrates, tunes, and harmonizes your inflexible storage devices into a dynamic symphony. The “V”, by the way, in SANsymphony-V stands for virtualization.
VSM: What are the most compelling user benefits for SANsymphony-V?
GT: The most important benefit of a software-based approach to storage infrastructure is that it enables customers toget more from whatever storage they use, repurpose existing equipment, and extend its useful life. Therefore, SANsymphony-V helps businesses maximize ROI, minimize costs, and mitigate their risks. Just as importantly, it boosts productivity through its modern and intuitive storage management making it much easier to automate tasks and manage storage resources efficiently within any virtual infrastructure (server and/or desktop).
SANsymphony-V also includes a number of advances to better safeguard workloads and avoid disruptions, including integrated continuous data protection (CDP), multi-site recovery, and high-speed and traffic compressing replication.
VSM: What are the differentiating elements of the DataCore model/approach compared to other solutions on the market? For example, what are the differentiating factors in SANsymphony-V?
GT: In addition to what I have already stated, the main difference arises because DataCore is virtualization software for storage. Unlike vendors who claim to offer “virtualization” from within their storage arrays, DataCore permits users to leverage their existing storage that they have already deployed, while enhancing it with infrastructure-wide features that span many different storage devices from many different vendors. Most importantly, the virtual software infrastructure lives beyond the life of these storage devices which come and go over time.
No one would ever dream of throwing away Exchange or VMware because the server on which it was running became obsolete. Yet, this is what the storage industry has been forcing customers to do with their storage for years – junking their entire investment each time they need to replace, grow or upgrade their storage solutions. DataCore gives customers the power to reject this costly approach by offering both the shared storage required to implement virtual infrastructures and the comfort of knowing that their storage investments will continue to work for them for many years to come.
VSM: What are the future challenges in this market and how does DataCore intend to respond?
GT: For storage virtualization, I see three driving forces: the move to greater commoditization of hardware, the need to better consolidate the use of resources, and the need to drive down people costs. Every CIO I have visited recently is focused on the cost equation and getting higher productivity. DataCore makes commoditization practical, while providing performance and functionality. We allow multiple storage types and existing storage to be consolidated to maximize storage asset utilization. Our software greatly automates storage management and the administrative tasks associated with storing information across many systems.
Another key driver for storage virtualization is the increase in server and desktop virtualization products like those from VMware, Citrix, and Microsoft. They drive the need for a lot more storage. When you only had individual servers, you would use the attached captive disks installed in the server. With server virtualization products, you need virtual infrastructure storage, which can be provided to one server, many servers, or a farm of servers. A lot more capacity and flexibility is required, and there’s typically a lot more performance load on those virtualized servers. Because of DataCore’s scalability and performance, our storage virtualization may help foster an even faster rate of adoption of combined, large-scale server and storage virtualization infrastructures. It’s an interesting cycle; server virtualization drives more storage and performance requirements, thereby driving the need for powerful storage virtualization.
We’ve done a great job of virtualizing storage and companies like VMware and Microsoft have done a great job of virtualizing servers, but there’s a lot more to be gained by building an infrastructure that includes both. Many of our customers have already combined these two technologies, and I see this trend continuing. We work with our partners and vendors like VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix so that our combined virtual capabilities work well together within end-user environments.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
DataCore SANsymphony-V Release Wins Strong Support from Key Virtualization and Disk Storage Alliance Partners Worldwide
http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/02/07/datacore-sansymphony-v-release-wins-strong-support-from-key-virtualization-and-disk-storage-alliance-partners-worldwide.aspx
“By using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center, DataCore SANsymphony-V will help customers reduce the cost of storage while delivering improved performance and availability,” said Mike Schutz, senior director of product management for the Server and Cloud division at Microsoft Corp.
“Through our partnership with DataCore, VMware is able to deliver the benefits of simple, complementary and highly available storage solutions optimized to work with the VMware platform,” said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. “The new SANsymphony-V helps expand the benefits of VMware solutions including improved storage hardware flexibility, additional disk space utilization and high availability.”
Data centers are now on the move to embrace total virtual infrastructures to add flexibility, reduce costs and increase the productivity of their desktop, server and storage investments. According to Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group, "For server virtualization endeavors to truly succeed, IT shops will have to match those capabilities with total storage virtualization - or else it's all for naught. Autonomous storage virtualization that sits a layer above the physical storage is the way it inevitably has to be."
“End users are telling us that storage ‘surprises’ can be a major irritant with – or even impediment to – desktop and server virtualization projects,” states Mark Peters, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “The surprises are twofold – firstly operational, whereby the virtualized computing layer is precluded from working well by the lack of an equally flexible storage infrastructure; and secondly, financial, as the first issue precludes the economic advantages of server virtualization from being achieved, and the subsequent ‘quick-fix’ storage acquisitions drive costs up and over budget. DataCore addresses the operational issues and hence delivers pleasing economic value. Its software intelligently repurposes existing resources in order to meet the unpredictable and unforeseen workloads that virtual machines and desktops generate.”
DataCore SANsymphony-V Release Wins Strong Support
http://tech-blogs.co.uk/business-software/datacore-sansymphony-v-release-wins-strong-support-telecom-reseller/
“Storage virtualization has become an essential component of enterprise virtualization,” says Carlos M. Carreras, vice president of alliances and business development, DataCore Software . “As our customers look at strategies to combine the components of a successful … “By using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center, DataCore SANsymphony-V will help customers reduce the cost of storage while delivering improved performance and availability.” …
DataCore SANsymphony-V release wins strong support
http://www.snseurope.com/news_full.php?id=17170
Storage virtualization software combined with a robust partner ecosystem satisfies operational and financial objectives of fully virtualized data centers.
“By using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center, DataCore SANsymphony-V will help customers reduce the cost of storage while delivering improved performance and availability,” said Mike Schutz, senior director of product management for the Server and Cloud division at Microsoft Corp.
“Through our partnership with DataCore, VMware is able to deliver the benefits of simple, complementary and highly available storage solutions optimized to work with the VMware platform,” said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. “The new SANsymphony-V helps expand the benefits of VMware solutions including improved storage hardware flexibility, additional disk space utilization and high availability.”
Data centers are now on the move to embrace total virtual infrastructures to add flexibility, reduce costs and increase the productivity of their desktop, server and storage investments. According to Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group, "For server virtualization endeavors to truly succeed, IT shops will have to match those capabilities with total storage virtualization - or else it's all for naught. Autonomous storage virtualization that sits a layer above the physical storage is the way it inevitably has to be."
“End users are telling us that storage ‘surprises’ can be a major irritant with – or even impediment to – desktop and server virtualization projects,” states Mark Peters, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “The surprises are twofold – firstly operational, whereby the virtualized computing layer is precluded from working well by the lack of an equally flexible storage infrastructure; and secondly, financial, as the first issue precludes the economic advantages of server virtualization from being achieved, and the subsequent ‘quick-fix’ storage acquisitions drive costs up and over budget. DataCore addresses the operational issues and hence delivers pleasing economic value. Its software intelligently repurposes existing resources in order to meet the unpredictable and unforeseen workloads that virtual machines and desktops generate.”
DataCore SANsymphony-V Release Wins Strong Support
http://tech-blogs.co.uk/business-software/datacore-sansymphony-v-release-wins-strong-support-telecom-reseller/
“Storage virtualization has become an essential component of enterprise virtualization,” says Carlos M. Carreras, vice president of alliances and business development, DataCore Software . “As our customers look at strategies to combine the components of a successful … “By using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center, DataCore SANsymphony-V will help customers reduce the cost of storage while delivering improved performance and availability.” …
DataCore SANsymphony-V release wins strong support
http://www.snseurope.com/news_full.php?id=17170
Storage virtualization software combined with a robust partner ecosystem satisfies operational and financial objectives of fully virtualized data centers.
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
SANsymphony-V Product Reviews
Network Computing released a new product review on DataCore SANsymphony-V software, you can read it at:
SANsymphony-V Network Computing Review
The enormous growth of network storage in the enterprise is forcing businesses to consider new ways of managing their storage capacity so as to keep within budget.
Storage virtualization is a significant consideration and the latest SANsymphony-V software from DataCore offers a viable solution, offering a keen focus on data availability, disaster recovery and performance.
Loading SANsymphony-V onto two servers with multiple network ports brings synchronous mirroring into play, delivering always-on data access. Real time I/O replication runs across the two nodes, so, if one fails, the virtual disks remain available to all of the attached hosts. Connect your hosts over MPIO (multi-path I/O) links and you have created complete end-to-end redundancy.
For lab testing, we deployed a pair of dual Xeon X5560 servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 and had SANsymphony-V installed on them in a matter of minutes.
The new management console is very impressive. It allows you to view all of your DataCore servers, attached physical storage, virtual resources and hosts from a single location.
The 'Getting Started' page makes light work of initial configuration by providing step-by step guides for all functions.
Read the full article at: SANsymphony-V Network Computing Review
Also please check out all the new product reviews on SANsymphony-V, at:
DataCore Product Reviews
SANsymphony-V Network Computing Review
The enormous growth of network storage in the enterprise is forcing businesses to consider new ways of managing their storage capacity so as to keep within budget.
Storage virtualization is a significant consideration and the latest SANsymphony-V software from DataCore offers a viable solution, offering a keen focus on data availability, disaster recovery and performance.
Loading SANsymphony-V onto two servers with multiple network ports brings synchronous mirroring into play, delivering always-on data access. Real time I/O replication runs across the two nodes, so, if one fails, the virtual disks remain available to all of the attached hosts. Connect your hosts over MPIO (multi-path I/O) links and you have created complete end-to-end redundancy.
For lab testing, we deployed a pair of dual Xeon X5560 servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 and had SANsymphony-V installed on them in a matter of minutes.
The new management console is very impressive. It allows you to view all of your DataCore servers, attached physical storage, virtual resources and hosts from a single location.
The 'Getting Started' page makes light work of initial configuration by providing step-by step guides for all functions.
Read the full article at: SANsymphony-V Network Computing Review
Also please check out all the new product reviews on SANsymphony-V, at:
DataCore Product Reviews
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