Webinar: The time is right for a Software-defined revolution in storage

The storage industry is undergoing major disruption.

Storage hardware vendors are unsurprisingly, branding existing solutions comprising of proprietary hardware, with software as "software-defined". Join DataCore Software in this Webinar for complete independence from the underlying hardware, increased performance, greater utilisation, reduced effort on routine storage tasks and to virtually eliminate storage related downtime.

Presented by David Bull, Director Technical Sales from DataCore on 20th October 2014. Learn how our software solves many of the storage-related challenges encountered in a traditional storage practice, with software-defined storage virtualization, supporting all the major storage hardware suppliers and host environments.

Register for our Webinar now!

Date: October 20th 2014

Time: 2.00pm - 3.00pm (AEST)

DataCore wins Discount Retail Chain 'Cheap as Chips' Contract

Discount retail chain will implement DataCore’s SANsymphony-V Software-defined Storage in NSW, Victoria and South Australia

Software-defined storage firm, DataCore, has struck a deal to provide Australian discount retail chain, Cheap as Chips, with its storage network solution across three states.

Cheap as Chips will implement DataCore’s SANsymphony software to manage its storage network in its 30 stores across South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.

Cheap as Chips ICT manager, Eamonn Merrifield, said the company needed to modernise its existing infrastructure to improve flexibility and performance of its storage network.

“Performance is paramount to run our key business applications – we usually carry over 14,000 product lines at any time and the tiered storage solution offers us performance in areas where we need it most,” he said.

“A primary factor in Cheap as Chips’ decision to go with DataCore was they do not restrict us to certain storage vendors.

"This allows us to take advantage of the rapidly changing storage market,” he said.

DataCore regional sales director, Ian Heath, said the company was pleased to welcome Cheap as Chips to its client base and looked forward to providing it with software-defined storage solutions.

From ARN: http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/557211/datacore-wins-cheap-chips-contract/ 

DataCore Customer Net Entertainment Drives Over 16 Billion Commercial Transactions using SANsymphony-V Software-defined Storage

IP Expo Europe 2014 is on today and tomorrow: DataCore Showcases Software-defined Storage Customers, 'No Limits' Virtual SAN and free license offer for ‘Any Storage, Any Hypervisor’ Software

NetEnt Onsite Customer Testimonial proves real-world Business Value of Software-Defined Storage infrastructure supporting over 16 Billion Commercial Transactions a Year 


At the shows’ ever popular “Software Defined Data Centre Theatre”, DataCore is pleased to invite one of the world’s leading online gaming companies, NetEnt (NetEntertainment), to present each day on how they have improved their productivity and overcame IT specific challenges within their industry including rapidly emerging and changing regulations by deploying DataCore software to enable the business to perform over 16 billion transactions a year in one of the fastest growing European markets. 

“No known hardware based solution could be identified to offer improvement in regard to our exacting storage requirements. In fact, amongst all well-known storage vendors, there was no real encompassing solution until we evaluated DataCore’s SANsymphony-V software. DataCore’s SDS platform gives NetEnt all the storage flexibility, high availability, performance and functionality required and improves our overall data security with an adaptable design for future requirements, which is a key priority for us”, comments Anders Redander, NetEnt’s Infrastructure Architect . “That’s why I am happy to be talking about our experience in the theatre and off the stand each day at IP Expo.”

In addition to the presentations, Anders will also be hosting a Customer Clinic on the stand, where attendees have the opportunity to have an independent no-holes barred discussion on the merits and concerns they may have in adopting software defined infrastructure. For those that still need convincing, attendees will be offered a free special Virtual SAN software license for virtualisation and storage experts to test-drive back at base. 

IP Expo 2014

DataCore, today and tomorrow is at the new IP Expo 2014 to show European attendees the power of its new ‘any hypervisor, any storage’ Virtual SAN software and its SANsymphony-V10 storage services platform, already proven in over 10,000 customer installs. On stand K8, DataCore demonstrates how the comprehensive 10th generation SDS platform and the DataCore Virtual SAN, resolves the challenges of managing separate ‘data islands’, integrating cost-effective commodity hardware, adding innovative Flash technology, and avoiding lock-ins caused by the convergence movement that adopters face in their journey towards a software defined data centre. 

“One of the key themes of IP Expo is the emergence of software defined and we are relishing the opportunity to tell everyone how we address their environments across any storage and on any hypervisor.” Comments George Teixeira, CEO and president at DataCore. “DataCore enables businesses to get started with a high performance, stretchable and scalable virtual SAN at an appealing price without dealing with the cost and complexity hassles of traditional SANs or forcing limitations to using a single vendor hypervisor or specific flash and disk storage brands.”  

DataCore “Any Hypervisor, Any Storage” Virtual SAN scales up to the Enterprise level DataCore™ Virtual SAN leverages its 10th generation SDS technology to create an highly flexible, performant and scalable cross-platform shared storage for all major hypervisors (VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V etc.). With DataCore’s Virtual SAN, organisations can virtualise server flash and server disks as well as integrate external storage arrays into a cost efficient virtual SAN for virtual servers. Thus it eliminates the need to deal with traditional SAN costs and complexities, while it accelerates performance to more than 50 million IOPS and scales to 32 petabytes of capacity across a cluster of up to 32 servers, making it one of the most powerful and scalable systems available. DataCore’s Virtual SAN capabilities allows companies to automatically tier and optimise their storage investments to achieve the best balance of price and performance, regardless of storage or server brands, hypervisor platforms or location of the data.

Putting It All Together with DataCore SANsymphony-V10, the Ultimate Storage Services Platform With growing demand for capacity and speed, the DataCore Virtual SAN (empowering both server Flash and disk technologies) can seamlessly integrate or migrate into a physical SAN of enterprise dimensions with petabytes of data under the Software Defined Storage platform SANsymphony-V spanning different departments, data centres and remote locations. DataCore SANsymphony-V10 provides a complete range of storage services to enhance, virtualise and manage existing and new storage assets enterprise-wide.

DataCore’s advanced technology allows for continuous data availability, with nearly zero percent downtime, reducing storage costs by up to 75 percent and improving the I/O performance of virtualized applications by up to 10x. DataCore customers report up to 4x increase in capacity utilisation, nearly 100 percent reduction in storage-related downtime, as well as a 90 percent decrease in time spent on routine storage tasks.

Stand K8: Free DataCore Virtual SAN for Virtualisation Followers
DataCore is commemorating its 10th generation release by offering a free, non-production lab use Virtual SAN software licenses. Intended primarily for technical specialists, virtualisation consultants, certified storage experts, instructors and architects evaluating technologies to manage and optimise storage infrastructures, the software will help organisations evaluate and experience the value of a converged infrastructure. Drop by the stand or request a copy at: www.datacore.com/products/features/virtual-san. 

Join DataCore in one of Melbourne's rooftops for a drink, chat and bite to eat!

We would like to invite you to join us for an after-work evening of drinks and a bite to eat, in the Tuscan Rooftop Wine Garden in Melbourne’s CBD, on 25^th September 2014.

This is your time to find out why organisations around the globe are turning to DataCore for their storage.

This informal event is being hosted by DataCore Software with the aim of informing you of DataCore’s unique value proposition and how using DataCore will vastly improve your growing storage challenges.

We are looking forward to enjoying an evening of delicious Italian delicacies and a few drinks with you. We will discuss your storage challenges and you will get the opportunity to find out why organisations around the globe, are turning to DataCore for their storage.

DataCore’s after-work evening is an exclusive opportunity to relax with some of your colleagues, enjoy delicious food and a drink or two, while engaging with the DataCore team on Software-defined Storage in Action.

We ask you to please register your attendance to our evening event and we look forward to seeing you on the 25^th September 2014. If you would like to bring along a colleague(s) please feel free to forward the register link onto them and ensure they register their own details.

If you would like to find out more about this event please email us at: ANZinfo@datacore.com

DataCore and CommVault Partner to address Software-Defined Storage Momentum and Redefine Data Protection and Recovery

SANsymphony-™V is the first and only software-defined storage architecture to be fully integrated with CommVault’s Simpana® IntelliSnap® snapshot management technology. Through the combination of their advanced storage software, DataCore and CommVault are now able to deliver industry-leading data protection and recovery operations for today’s dynamic workloads to customers around the world.

CommVault's IntelliSnap technology ensures that IT organisations, including application, virtualisation and storage managers, can perform rapid, granular and consistent recovery of vital VMware and Microsoft Exchange, SQL, SharePoint and file data through federated search across indexed snapshots. CommVault continues to expand this growing ecosystem by enabling software and disk array vendors to integrate their snapshots with IntelliSnap technology through the IntelliSnap Connect Program.

“Today’s dynamic application workloads require a different type of thinking as data protection needs to be looked at from end to end and centered around mitigating the impact to the business,” said George Teixeira, president and CEO at DataCore. “As a result of our partnership with CommVault, organisations can now leverage the benefits of software-defined storage to accelerate data protection and recovery operations while making hardware maintenance, data migrations and hardware refreshes easier.”

With the integration of SANsymphony-V and Simpana IntelliSnap technology, organisations can:

Virtualise and pool access to any type of storage regardless of vendor model or brand, enabling companies to maximise their existing storage investments and boost application performance

Automate the creation of indexed, application-aware snapshot copies across enterprise-wide, multi-vendor storage environments

Simplify deployment and orchestrate recovery across all snapshots, backup and archive copies, while delivering storage specific reporting and managing replication

Minimise downtime with application-aware, point-in-time recovery of Microsoft Exchange Server, SharePoint, SQL, VMware, Hyper-V and other business critical applications

Reduce primary storage costs with automated snapshot backup to open systems, disk, tape or even the cloud for cost-effective retention

“CommVault is committed to working with partners who share a similar vision in helping increase efficiencies and reducing costs in today’s storage environments, while at the same time ensuring data protection and recovery remain top of mind,” said Jeff Echols, senior director of product and solutions marketing at CommVault. “As the software-defined storage market continues to grow, organisations will need data protection and recovery solutions in place that work across multiple-vendors in the same architecture – and we have achieved this through our partnership with DataCore.”

http://www.it-director.com/technology/storage/news_release.php?rel=44454

Thunderbird School Of Global Management Meets Key VMware, Metro-Clustering And IT Cost Challenges With DataCore Software-Defined Storage

“Due to the software-defined storage approach of DataCore’s SANsymphony-V, we are free to choose any hardware and no longer locked-in to a storage vendor, which gives us greater purchasing power," said Johan Reinalda, senior director network infrastructure and support services, Thunderbird School of Global Management. “This solution has allowed us to take a cost-effective approach when addressing our storage need. Additionally, functionality such as DataCore’s auto-tiering and self-tuning capabilities has led to performance increases in improving response times to VM within our VMware environment.”

No Dependence on Expensive Hardware – with Software-Defined Storage from DataCore

Thunderbird faced the IT challenge of being dependent on aging SAN controller infrastructure from NetApp, as well as various storage devices that were facing “end of life.” The school’s IT organization also sought to open up its purchasing options and free itself from this hardware and system vendor lock-in. Data storage growth rates were high and rising– so there was also the need to cost-effectively deal with the challenges of increasing growth and need for more capacity.

The institution was looking for a way to avoid the high cost of upgrading under its existing NetApp solution, which was deployed as a metro-cluster. Thunderbird wanted to protect its existing investment and therefore still has NetApp running, however, IT has been able to modernize its overall storage and has moved all mission-critical storage to a software-based DataCore SANsymphony-V storage virtualization platform. In fact, the DataCore implementation cost was only a fraction of what Thunderbird would have spent for the upgrade path from the incumbent vendor.

“We saved 60 percent on our storage upgrade – based on the quote from our original vendor, NetApp,” explained Reinalda. “We replaced all parts of the SAN – a total revamp, including disks, whereas the previous vendor option was to replace mostly the controllers. This was the overwhelming reason we went the DataCore route – that and no vendor lock-in for storage.”

Realizing the Benefits & Eliminating Downtime: Defining Storage Its Own Way at Thunderbird

In addition to a whopping 60 percent cost savings relative to the entrenched SAN vendor, the agility and flexibility the IT staff now has through DataCore – as far as scaling and expanding its infrastructure to best meet the organization’s needs – is now the norm at Thunderbird. For instance, system administrators can now add multi-vendor storage behind SANsymphony-V and have a single unified management interface.

The IT department is reporting a three to four times performance increase in response times of the storage for its virtual machines (VMs). Thunderbird is not using high-end storage behind SANsymphony-V, but they are using DataCore’s auto-tiering feature along with solid state disks (SSDs). The institution has embraced a high availability (HA) implementation in which SANsymphony-V is synchronously mirrored across two different data centers that are metro-clustered across the campus and as a result the IT team can perform upgrades without any downtime to its VMware “internal could” environment.

Reinalda emphasized that DataCore has ushered in a new day as far as making its storage infrastructure more resilient through storage that is software-defined. “The HA environment means better uptime. We have experienced no downtime in the six months we have been ‘live’ with SANsymphony-V,” he noted.

A complete case study concerning the DataCore deployment at Thunderbird School of Global Management is available here: http://datacore.com/testimonials/thunderbird.

CRN: DataCore taps ex-EMC man as regional sales boss

Ian Heath joins after more than a decade at EMC.

DataCore Software has appointed former EMC figure Ian Heath as its regional sales director for ANZ.

Heath brings 25 years of IT industry experience to DataCore, including nearly 15 years with EMC, most recently as its ANZ alliances director.

He said: "I am looking forward to bolstering customer relationships and resources to deliver valuable outcomes to both our customers and company."

Meanwhile, DataCore has hired Orla Hanby as marketing manager for APAC, she was previously managing director at Media Corp International.

The software-defined storage company announced these appointments following news they're extending their distribution network in the region.

Read more: Here  

Network Computing Product Review: DataCore Virtual SAN and SANsymphony-V Software-defined Storage Solutions

Enterprise storage virtualisation offers many advantages over proprietary hardware solutions including cost effectiveness, no vendor lock-in and excellent scalability

DataCore's SANsymphony-V software is a prime example and its latest version (10) delivers new Virtual SAN capabilities and features that make storage virtualisation really compelling.

The new features focus sharply on the highest possible performance by using Flash and hard disk storage. Normally restricted to high-end enterprise disk arrays you can monitor disk activity, migrate hot data to higher performance storage and work across a range of vendor devices. Storage clustering is massively enhanced supporting up to 32 nodes and scaling to more than...

Read the full Networking Computing Product Review: 

SANsymphony-V and Virtual SAN from DataCore Software

DataCore Software appoints two new senior staff to their Australian and New Zealand operations

Software-defined storage vendor, DataCore Software, has appointed two new senior staff to their Australian and New Zealand operations. 

Ian Heath has been appointed as the company’s Regional Sales Director for A/NZ. Heath joins DataCore with 25 years of IT industry experience, including roles at EMC Global and Computacenter. Most recently, Heath was EMC’s A/NZ alliances director, driving a multi-level engagement strategy for Telstra's IT transformation, valued in excess of $130 million. Heath said there was growing demand within A/NZ market for software-defined storage and the time was right for DataCore to breakthrough and seize the opportunity.

“I am looking forward to bolstering customer relationships and resources to deliver valuable outcomes to both our customers and company,” he said. 

DataCore has also appointed Orla Hanby as Marketing Manager APAC, to lead the region’s marketing and demand generation programs for DataCore’s ANZ partner network. Hanby, formerly marketing director at Media Corp International, has welcomed the new opportunity. “DataCore this year launched its 10th generation SANsymphony-V software and new virtual SAN solutions, which have driven a 50 percent increase in sales growth over last year," she said.

"I am optimistic that we can sustain these efforts and capitalise on increased momentum in the sector through innovative marketing approaches." The announcement follows news that the company will extend its distribution network in the region and open a new office in Sydney.

Full Article at ARN: http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/554830/datacore-appoints-new-senior-staff-software-defined-storage-push/ 

Video Interview: Virtual SAN overview & demo by Ben Treiber, DataCore Software

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFLsIhcnBnw&list=UUaC9l9CYIEazFB5-pWfCNKw

CRN Slideshow: 35 Must-See Storage Offerings from VMworld 2014

DataCore Virtual SAN: Any Hypervisor, Any Storage 

Number 8: http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/virtualization/300073877/vmworld-2014-35-must-see-storage-offerings.htm/pgno/0/8  

Experience the power of the new Virtual SAN capabilities and further educate yourself on the benefits of software-defined storage. DataCore is providing free access to a non-production use Virtual SAN software license. The free SANsymphony-V10 Virtual SAN software is now available for download at: www.datacore.com/Free-Virtual-SAN.

Also, check out the new Virtual SAN design and deployment guide

VMblog catches up with DataCore about SANsymphony-V10 at VMworld 2014

VMblog stopped by DataCore's booth at VMworld 2014 to interview Paul Murphy and Ben Treiber to learn more about DataCore Software and get a demo of SANsymphony-V10. 

DataCore ANZ Welcomes New Staff, New Facilities and New Customers for Software-Defined Storage

“The storage industry is undergoing major disruption and the time is right for DataCore ANZ to breakthrough and seize the market opportunity,” said Ian Heath, Regional Sales Director (ANZ), DataCore Software. “The reality is that in region an increase in the adoption of software-defined storage strategies proves the tremendous value that DataCore offers by not only integrating customers’ storage architectures, but safeguarding their data for continuous availability, as well as accelerating access to data for the fastest response and highest throughput.” 

DataCore ANZ Highlights of 2014 thus far include:

• Robust growth for new system sales. Examples of new DataCore customers include House of Travel based in New Zealand and Dennis Family Homes, a major Australian home builder.
• New senior management with Ian Heath serving as Regional Sales Director ANZ.
• Technical expertise with an expanded team of system engineers and solutions architects serving as on-demand resources for customers and partners alike.
• A new marketing function headed by Orla Hanby, Marketing Manager - APAC, located in Melbourne Australia, that can now drive demand generation programmes and better serve the DataCore ANZ partner ecosystem with qualified prospects who have been exposed to and educated about the benefits of software-defined storage.
• New inside sales and customer care resources to increase sales engagements and better inform and serve our installed customer base.
• More local webinars and local events. For example, DataCore’s Solution Architect David Bull and our local teams are hosting a series of breakfast meetings in Sydney & Melbourne, contact ANZinfo@datacore.com for more info.
• A growing presence in region – with a DataCore ANZ office in Sydney joining an expanded DataCore office in Melbourne.
• A 50% increase in sales growth compared to last year’s first half of the year business.

The ANZ team is also enhanced by a distribution network that includes: Avnet Technology Solutions, Independent Data Solutions (IDS), NewLease and Westcon Group. Moreover the reseller channel extends the DataCore ecosystem throughout ANZ. Resellers include: Addax, Data#3, Data.com, DiGiCOR, Flexnet, Lincom Solutions, Think Solutions, and numerous others.

“DataCore started the software-defined revolution in storage, has thousands of customers worldwide, and now is well positioned with a presence and a high-caliber team in ANZ to amplify our industry impact,” stated Peter Thompson, Vice President - Asia Pacific, DataCore Software. “Customers are realizing through DataCore that it’s not about the storage. Instead, it’s about turning the focus to data by delivering unmatched availability, utilization and performance.”

The ANZ Market Recognizes That Software-Defined Storage Is Transformative

Customers in key industry segments are using DataCore’s software-defined storage services platform to eliminate downtime, to achieve up to a 4x increase in capacity utilization, up to 10x increase in performance, to reduce storage costs by as much as 75%, and to make storage management both easy and simple. Notable DataCore ANZ accounts include:

Education:  Murdoch University, St John Ambulance Australia (Vic) Inc, Family Planning Victoria

Healthcare: Bendigo Radiology, Canterbury District Health Board

Government: Kingston City Council, Public Transport Authority of Western Australia, Greater Dandenong City Council, Australian Taxation Office, Statistics New Zealand, and Roads and Maritime Services (NSW)

Industry Leaders: Australian Grand Prix Corporation, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ports of Auckland, Nintendo Australia PTY Ltd., and Jetstar Airways Pty Ltd.

Join DataCore for breakfast in Sydney & Melbourne next week!

Further to the success of last month’s DataCore breakfasts in Sydney and Melbourne, we have the pleasure in inviting you to two more exclusive and delectable breakfast events.

Melbourne's breakfast will be hosted in one of Melbourne’s finest eateries; Feddish restaurant, Federation Square, on 26th August 2014. 

Sydney's breakfast will be hosted in one of Sydney's finest eateries; Gowings Bar & Grill, in Sydney's CBD, on the 27th August 2014.

These breakfast events are being hosted by DataCore Software with the aim of informing you of DataCore’s unique value proposition and how using DataCore will vastly improve your growing storage challenges.

This is your time to find out why organisations around the globe, are turning to DataCore for their storage.

DataCore clients are reporting the following:

DataCore’s breakfast is an exclusive opportunity to sit down with some of your colleagues, enjoy a delicious breakfast, while listening to a presentation by David Bull, Director, Technical Sales, DataCore Software, on Software defined Storage in Action.

We ask you to please register your attendance to our Sydney or Melbourne breakfast and we look forward to seeing you on the 26th & 27th August 2014. 

- To register for our Sydney breakfast event please click here and enter your personal details.

- To register for our Melbourne breakfast event please click here and enter your personal details.

We look forward to meeting you there!

Virtual SAN Product Review: DataCore versus VMware

DataCore’s Virtual SAN or VMware’s Virtual SAN

Full Report: Virtual SAN Product Review - DataCore versus VMware

"DataCore’s Virtual SAN or VMware’s Virtual SAN - this type of comparison and question easily comes to mind whenever the use of storage virtualization is being evaluated. Other important issues to consider is the ease of deployment and ability to  scale these systems in terms of performance and capacity, a key point  highlighted by converged system suppliers such as Nutanix for example. With this backdrop and the introduction of DataCore’s SANsymphony-V10, and the recent release of VMware’s Virtual SAN, we decided there was a need to offer a comparative analysis overviewing the “virtual SANs” and their essential differences."

"...When comparing DataCore’s SANsymphony-V10 Virtual SAN  with VMware’s VSAN, one aspect is particularly striking: VSAN is suitable only for ESXi-based hosts which have a directly connected storage device - hard drives and SSDs/flash memory devices.  By contrast, SANsymphony-V is suitable both for physical environments and virtualized infrastructures..." 

Read the full NT4Admins Product Review: 

Virtual SAN Product Review - DataCore versus VMware

Rights Advocacy Agency Relies on a DataCore Virtual SAN and Hyper-V for Disaster Recovery, Greater Agility and Optimal Use of Dell Servers

Software-defined storage architecture benefits non-profit legal rights advocacy agency to achieve greater flexibility and cost-savings.

http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2014/08/20/disability-rights-texas-relies-datacore-virtual-san-and-hyper-v-disaster-recovery-greater#ixzz3AwLX9cy1 

DataCore announced today that Disability Rights (DRTx), a non-profit legal and protection advocacy agency, has attained a new level of agility and productivity by going virtual and software-defined with DataCore and Microsoft Hyper-V. DRTx started out on its virtualization journey by successfully implementing a redundant pair of DataCore SANsymphony-V software empowered “nodes” (SAN 1 and SAN 2) in the main center. DRTx leveraged the storage virtualization and synchronously mirroring capabilities of DataCore to prevent downtime and ensure continuous data availability for business operations.

Next, the organization added a DataCore Virtual SAN running on a Dell server, which resides in a remote location (SAN 3). Critical data and VMs are now constantly replicated to the remote site for disaster recovery (DR). DataCore and Microsoft Hyper-V now work in tandem to virtualize the physical server and storage environment, and they simplify and speed up recovery in the event of a disaster. Microsoft in effect significantly improved server agility; likewise DataCore did the same for storage.

“We would not have been able to achieve the overall agility, cost-savings and productivity benefits without SANsymphony-V storage virtualization software from DataCore,” said Carlton Whitmore, IT manager, Disability Rights Texas. “The DataCore Virtual SAN and SANsymphony-V storage virtualization platform have combined to enable DRTx to fully use existing investments and significantly increase our flexibility, portability and cost-savings to meet future needs.”

Whitmore is also extremely pleased with the fact that as a Dell user he can use a mix of state-of-the-art Dell servers and older servers with different speeds and types of disk drives.

“The DataCore Virtual SAN software and the ability to use our existing Dell servers made it cost-effective and practical to set up a new disaster recovery site,” he stated, “We can build virtual SANs on lesser systems that don’t cost nearly as much as the main SAN that we are using.”

The flexibility and the portability inherent to DataCore SANsymphony-V enabled DRTx to save money by bringing the price point down on the overall IT infrastructure. In particular, it greatly helps avoid the recurring costs associated with having to “rip and replace” a traditional hardware SAN.

“Before implementing DataCore we got hit pretty hard with maintenance costs – or we would need to buy new equipment to replace what was constantly being phased out,” stated Whitmore. “As far as tangible costs saved with DataCore, we are probably saving at least $7,000 - $8,000 a year, every year as far as maintenance fees and additional hardware costs that we no longer have to pay now that we have virtualized both servers and storage.”

As a legal and protection advocacy agency, DRTx depends heavily on the case management system, Legal Files, as its virtualized case management system. This application and the case information are mission-critical to the firm and therefore it needs a reliable server and storage infrastructure. DataCore’s software has seamlessly increased the speed and response times of these key systems and processes – making them more efficient and productive.

The flexibility and the portability inherent to DataCore has enabled DRTx to cut expenses by allowing the agency to continue utilizing low-cost hardware and bringing the price point down on the overall IT infrastructure. This empowerment in terms of cost containment goes a long way for a non-profit organization.

A complete case study concerning the DataCore deployment at Disability Rights Texas is available here: http://datacore.com/testimonials/disability-rights-texas.

About Disability Rights Texas
Disability Rights Texas (previously named Advocacy Inc.) is the federally designated legal protection and advocacy agency (P&A) for people with disabilities in Texas. Our mission is to help people with disabilities understand and exercise their rights under the law, ensuring their full and equal participation in society. Visit http://www.DRTx.org for more information on our scope of services.

DataCore: The Software-defined Storage Solution for Healthcare IT Data Challenges

The Healthcare IT landscape has changed considerably over the last decade. Today, a myriad of challenges exist such as new healthcare regulations, high performance applications, massive data growth, and the need for non-stop data availability. Architecting a storage solution that meets these requirements while remaining financially viable is a daunting task.

New whitepaper: The Solution for Healthcare IT Data Storage Challenges.

...If I was to list out the top three highest priority challenges for Healthcare IT managers to address, they would be: Data Availability, Storage Scalability, and Storage Performance.

Challenge: Data Availability - Achieving Maximum Application Uptime
Data availability is focused on maintaining uninterrupted data accessibility, even in the event of a catastrophic failure, within the storage infrastructure due to user error, hardware malfunction, site failures and/or regional disasters. Uninterrupted data accessibility is an absolute must in the healthcare industry. Failure to sustain uptime could result in a negative impact on patient health, including loss of life, and/or severe financial penalties.

Challenge: Storage Scalability - Expanding Storage Capacity Without Disruption
Storage scalability has a dual focus. The first is how efficiently data is being stored on the existing storage hardware. The second is the presentation of additional capacity, ideally without interruption, to the production systems. With the increasing capacity demands from strict data retention policies and data-intensive healthcare applications such as EHR and PACS, maintaining a scalable storage platform is critical to operations.

Challenge: Storage Performance - Minimizing Application Latency
Storage performance is the main variable affecting  application performance, which directly impacts patient care. Simply introducing high speed storage within the  infrastructure for a particular application is no longer tenable when addressing performance. There are too many applications, too many databases, and too many systems involved to improve performance this way.

Conclusion
Healthcare IT is expected to maximize the return on every investment. But, there is also a great need for high-performance, reliable, enterprise-grade storage systems, which are expensive.

Consider the impact on ROI and TCO with a purpose built solution that allows you to leverage any make and model of storage system, all while providing blazing performance and the most advanced forms of data protection to safeguard your data. And as conditions change over time, expand without interruption, the resources needed to fulfill the demands of the new requirement.

For more information on the solution to these challenges, download our whitepaper: The Solution for Healthcare IT Data Storage Challenges.

DataCore to Showcase Virtual SAN Software, SANsymphony-V10 and New VMware Integration Plans at VMworld 2014

DataCore will be showcasing its new Virtual SAN capabilities and SANsymphony-V10, the latest version of its comprehensive storage services platform at VMworld 2014. The DataCore team will be on site to highlight how its Virtual SAN software federates converged storage with external storage arrays, across any hypervisor. DataCore will also offer a show special SANsymphony-V software license for virtualization and storage experts to test-drive the new capabilities, discuss VMware integrations (e.g., VVOLs, VAAI) and ‘Data Anywhere’ plans, as well as meet with attendees interested in engaging in alliance partnerships. DataCore will be present in booth #1445, next to VMware’s main booth at the conference.

WHO: Meet George Teixeira, CEO of DataCore, and other key senior level executives from DataCore that oversee strategic alliances, technology and product planning, sales and market positioning

WHAT: Showcasing DataCore SANsymphony-V10 and Virtual SAN capabilities

WHERE: VMworld 2014 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, booth #1445

WHEN: August 24 – 28, 2014

Free DataCore Software
DataCore is commemorating its 10th generation release by offering free, non-production version of its SANsymphony-V10 software licenses. Intended primarily for technical specialists, virtualization consultants, certified storage experts, instructors and architects evaluating technologies to manage and optimize storage infrastructures, the software will help organizations evaluate and experience the value of a converged infrastructure. To request a copy and learn more, please visit: www.datacore.com/products/features/virtual-san.

To schedule a meeting, visit the DataCore website or stop by the DataCore booth #1445. For more information on the event, please visit:http://www.vmworld.com/community/conference/us.

ABOUT DATACORE
DataCore is a leader in software-defined storage. The company’s storage virtualization and virtual SAN solutions empower organizations to seamlessly manage and scale their data storage architectures, delivering massive performance gains at a fraction of the cost of solutions offered by legacy storage hardware vendors. Backed by 10,000 customer sites around the world, DataCore’s adaptive and self-learning and healing technology takes the pain out of manual processes and helps deliver on the promise of the new software defined data center through its hardware agnostic architecture.

Leading Medical Center at the forefront of Healthcare IT and Storage Virtualisation

“As a result of DataCore’s software-defined storage platform, we have seen significant savings in hardware and personnel costs, while increasing the performance of applications,” said Gabriel Sandu, CTO at Maimonides Medical Center. “DataCore’s SANsymphony-V allows us to manage all these discrete systems from different vendors seamlessly and without compatibility issues, which gives us tremendous negotiating power to drive down costs.”

The flexibility of DataCore’s software has enabled Maimonides, a Brooklyn NY-based and leading independent teaching hospital, to meet the dynamic range of performance, availability and capacity growth demands needed to stay ahead of compliance regulations and their ever-changing applications and system requirements.

Safeguard Data and Eliminate Downtime
"At Maimonides we don't have the luxury of downtime... that's why we use DataCore, we are able to maintain our uptime at 100%."  states Walter Fahey, the Chief Information Officer at Maimondies. 
 
The hospital uses DataCore to split storage between two data centers using stretched metro-clusters and DataCore’s built-in metro-wide mirroring, enabling them to provide responsive applications and uninterrupted patient care during routine maintenance, equipment failures and facility upheaval. For example, when the hospital experienced a major power outage in one data center, the doctors, staff and patients had continuous access to their vital data from the virtualized storage pool at the redundant site. Once power was restored, the systems returned automatically to normal operations. If outages occur, IT systems don’t go down with the affected site and continue providing non-stop business operations.

Store Optimally - Centrally manage data and reclaim unused capacity
More than 800 physicians rely on Maimonides information systems to care for patients. Before working with DataCore, the organization had a number of disparate systems not working in conjunction with each other. This ad-hoc approach decreased efficiencies and intelligence around what departments were in need of storage resources.

With all storage now managed through DataCore software, the medical center can fully leverage existing storage assets, reduce costs, and track storage consumption, as well as more efficiently budget for the future by easily identifying usage patterns. Maimonides also now utilizes previously unused storage throughout the hospital because resources are pooled and easily optimized.   

Accelerate Access: Increase Application Performance 
“DataCore’s self-tuning caching capabilities also allow Maimonides to super-charge application performance,” said Rogee Fe de Leon, head of the storage group at Maimonides Medical Center. 

DataCore uses RAM to self-tune cache data, which eliminates bottlenecks by markedly increasing the performance of latency-sensitive applications. Maimonides has seen increased performance of its primary business-critical applications under the central control of DataCore’s SANsymphony-V, which include:

• GE’s imaging system (PACS)
• Numerous Oracle databases for human resources
• Microsoft SQL servers for clinical programs
• Primary databases for neonatal, geriatric, pediatric and research
• Microsoft Exchange and IBM DB2 databases that support medical records

Learn More about how other Healthcare Institutions have utilized DataCore, or check out ourHealthcare Solutions.