What the Heck Is a “Storage Hypervisor?”

http://www.mooselogic.com/blog/what-the-heck-is-a-storage-hypervisor

Our friends at DataCore ran a press release yesterday positioning the new release (v8.1) of SANsymphony-V as a “storage hypervisor.” On the surface, that may just sound like some nice marketing spin, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made – because it highlights one of the major differences between DataCore’s products and most other SAN products out there.

To understand what I mean, let’s think for a moment about what a “hypervisor” is in the server virtualization world. Whether you’re talking about VSphere, Hyper-V, or XenServer, you’re talking about software that provides an abstraction layer between hardware resources and operating system instances. An individual VM doesn’t know – or care – whether it’s running on an HP Server, a Dell, an IBM, or a “white box.” It doesn’t care whether it’s running on an Intel or an AMD processor. You can move a VM from one host to another without worrying about changes in the underlying hardware, bios, drivers, etc. (Not talking about “live motion” – that’s a little different.) The hypervisor presents the VM with a consistent execution platform that hides the underlying complexity of the hardware.

So, back to DataCore. Remember that SANsymphony-V is a software application that runs on top of Windows Server 2008 R2. In most cases, people buy a couple of servers that contain a bunch of local storage, install 2008 R2 on them, install SANsymphony-V on them, and turn that bunch of local storage into full-featured iSCSI SAN nodes. (We typically run them in pairs so that we can do synchronous mirroring of the data across the two nodes, such that if one node completely fails, the data is still accessible.) But that’s not all we can do.

Because it’s running on a 2008 R2 platform, it can aggregate and present any kind of storage the underlying Server OS can access at the block level. Got a fibre channel SAN that you want to throw into the mix? Great! Put fiber channel Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) in your DataCore nodes, present that storage to the servers that SANsymphony-V is running on, and now you can manage the fibre channel storage right along with the local storage in your DataCore nodes. Got some other iSCSI SAN that you’d like to leverage? No problem. Just make sure you’ve got a couple of extra NICs in the DataCore nodes (or install iSCSI HBAs if you want even better performance), present that iSCSI storage to the DataCore nodes, and you can manage it as well. You can even create a storage pool that crosses resource boundaries! And now, with the new auto-tiering functionality of SANsymphony-V v8.1, you can let DataCore automatically migrate the most frequently accessed data to the highest-performing storage subsystems.

Or how about this: You just bought a brand new storage system from Vendor A to replace the system from Vendor B that you’ve been using for the past few years. You’d really like to move Vendor B’s system to your disaster-recovery site, but Vendor A’s product doesn’t know how to replicate data to Vendor B’s product. If you front-end both vendors’ products with DataCore nodes, the DataCore nodes can handle the asynchronous replication to your DR site. Alternately, maybe you bought Vendor A’s system because it offered higher performance than Vendor B’s system. Instead of using Vendor B’s product for DR, you can present both systems to SANsymphony-V and leverage its auto-tiering feature to automatically insure that the data that needs the highest performance gets migrated to Vendor A’s platform.

So, on the back end, you can have disparate SAN products (iSCSI, fibre channel, or both) and local storage (including “JBOD” expansion shelves), and a mixture of SSD, SAS, and SATA drives. The SANsymphony-V software masks all of that complexity, and presents a consistent resource – in the form of iSCSI virtual volumes – to the systems that need to consume storage, e.g., physical or virtual servers.

That really is analogous to what a traditional hypervisor does in the server virtualization world. So it is not unreasonable at all to call SANsymphony-V a “storage hypervisor.” In fact, it’s pretty darned clever positioning, and I take my hat off to the person who crafted the campaign.

DataCore Announces SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor

Virtual Strategy Magazine: DataCore Introduces SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor

http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2011/08/24/datacore-introduces-sansymphony-v-storage-hypervisor

“The sprawl and multiplication of storage systems and the rising number of specialty devices are now the norm. The intelligence of a storage hypervisor provides a strategic advantage to managing the many as one,” said George Teixeira, president and CEO of DataCore Software. “SANsymphony-V enables users to take control of how their storage infrastructure evolves versus being subject to the dictates of tactical point-in-time decisions.”

“DataCore’s storage hypervisor significantly improves system performance and extends the life of our existing storage investments. The infrastructure-wide features fill in for missing device level functionality while efficiently automating and simplifying administration,” said Dave Patel, chief operating officer, CompuTech City. “From the standpoint of future hardware expansion and refreshes, DataCore gives us a powerful bargaining chip to shop for the best value without being locked in by choices we made in the past.”

“Server hypervisors from the likes of VMware and Microsoft have changed the game for users in their selection and exploitation of computing platforms by making them simultaneously more flexible and practically interchangeable. DataCore’s SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor brings those same advantages to storage infrastructures by leveraging the full potential of – and often adding extra capabilities to – the collective strength of existing storage devices, without relying on some unlikely level of co-operation among the storage vendors,” said Mark Peters, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group.


DataCore Adds Storage Hypervisor to Speed Storage Virtualization

http://www.mspmentor.net/2011/08/24/datacore-adds-storage-hypervisor-for-storage-virtualization/

DataCore Software, which specializes in storage virtualization and iSCSI SAN software, has launched the DataCore Storage Hypervisor. The move builds upon DataCore’s auto-tiering offering, according to President, CEO and Co-Founder George Teixeira. DataCore says channel partners are embracing the company’s software to (1) head off storage-related obstacles that stall virtualization deals, (2) speed adoption and standardization of virtual infrastructure and (3) increase share of wallet across storage and virtualization.

In this latest move, DataCore is “bringing out more openness in auto-tiering and its ability to integrate with other features,” said Teixeira. He said the DataCore Storage Hypervisor’s greatest feature is that it can “play across many different platforms,” because today’s data centers require specialized equipment to meet the different nuances of various customer workloads.

“From an MSP standpoint, they have two kinds of storage cases,” added DataCore Software Director of Product and Channel Marketing Augie Gonzalez. “They either buy the same type of storage and have multiples of it, or they have different storage levels because they support a lot of different systems. People are throwing purpose-built storage solutions at the problem.” Gonzalez claims the DataCore Storage Hypervisor can support both scenarios.

Among the challenges facing DataCore: Making sure the company’s storage virtualization strategy stands apart from all the different storage and virtualization claims floating around the IT industry. “The term [storage virtualization] has become so diluted. We are trying to make it clearer,” Teixeira said. Both Teixeira and Gonzalez said DataCore’s definition is more in line with Microsoft, Citrix Systems and VMware, meaning a rich set of features across many platforms.

DataCore has made multiple moves in recent months. In late July 2011, the company was promoting a virtualized storage solution for its SMB and MSP clients. A week later DataCore launched an auto-tiering solution for MSPs, a technology normally reserved for high-end storage needs.


DataCore Introduces SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor

http://www.istockanalyst.com/business/news/5375989/datacore-introduces-sansymphony-v-storage-hypervisor

DataCore Software, the industry’s premier provider of storage virtualization software, announced today major enhancements to its centrally-managed SANsymphony™- V solution. Combined, these new features elevate SANsymphony-V to the role of storage hypervisor, placing customers in the unique position to fully leverage their existing storage assets, including direct-attached storage (DAS), storage area networks (SAN) and solid state disks (SSD), and negotiate the best deals among competing storage manufacturers without concern for long-standing hardware vendor lock-ins.


More Coverage on SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor announcement:


IT Briefing: DataCore introduces SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor
http://itbriefing.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=196704&newlang=eng&topic=15&catid=37


Computer Technology Review: DataCore announces SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor
http://wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13591:datacore-announces-sansymphony-v-storage-hypervisor&catid=335:breaking-news&Itemid=2701755


eChannelLine: DataCore introduces SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor
http://www.echannelline.com/usa/brief.cfm?item=18520


TechnologyShore: DataCore Adds Storage Hypervisor to Speed Storage Virtualization
http://technologyshore.com/?p=111739


Data Storage Connection: DataCore announces Storage Hypervisor
http://www.datastorageconnection.com/article.mvc/DataCore-Introduces-SANsymphony-V-Storage-0001

Scottish Agricultural College selects DataCore SANsymphony-V and Microsoft for Unified Storage; Adds Performance and HA to NAS Clustered File Sharing

Virtualization World 365 - Top Story: Scottish Agricultural College selects DataCore SANsymphony-V and Microsoft for Unified Storage

Scotland’s Leading Agricultural College announces it has settled on SANsymphony-V to add performance and safeguard the NAS Clustered File Sharing capabilities inbuilt within their Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Platform.

Scottish Agricultural College selects DataCore

http://www.snseurope.com/news_full.php?id=19250&title=Scottish-Agricultural-College-selects-DataCore-SANsymphony-V-and-Microsoft-for-Unified-Storage-to-optimise-and-harves...

DataCore Software says that its SANsymphony™-V software has been deployed at the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) to fully utilize the Cluster File shares and Network Attached Storage capabilities included within their Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 platform.

The next generation of DataCore’s software, SANsymphony-V, was recommended and configured by a leading Scottish solution provider, Tecnica Ltd. This DataCore authorized partner designed the system to manage both NAS file sharing and SAN or directly attached storage (DAS).The system now spans across 3 nodes; one within SAC’s main Edinburgh campus and the other two some 8 miles away within the College’s Research and data center campus. While operational for less than a month, immediately the integrated combination of DataCore and Microsoft has decreased the College’s reliance on costly hardware solutions and added a new level of fault tolerance and data protection to its clustered NFS/CIFS file sharing.

The key driver for change for the College came in Autumn 2010 when their existing environment came to end of life; moving from a complex and costly SUN infrastructure in favor of a Microsoft Windows based platform, while consolidating storage and eliminating bottlenecks and disruptions. They commenced the search for alternatives and Tecnica Ltd responded with a DataCore software based solution that significantly lowered cost and ongoing capital outlays and stressed the importance of being device independent with a software based solution:-

“The DataCore unified storage software layer provides the performance and functionality we require to effectively manage our current and future data requirements and has removed complexity, cost and support skills exposure from our storage infrastructure” - Ronnie McIntyre, IS Infrastructure & Operations Manager, SAC

“Some of the features that attracted us to DataCore’s SANsymphony-V were the transparency and ease of management which it offered along with the flexibility of design configuration to allow us to build a solution that would match our performance and resilience requirements. As with many organizations we required an agile solution to be able to meet the demands of the business whether generated through strategic / legislative requirements or market opportunities.” - Peter Gowler, Infrastructure Systems Architect, SAC

Unified Storage with No Costly Specialty NAS Hardware Required:

Keith Joseph, Regional Manager, DataCore Software, commented, “What the SAC IT team, working closely with Tecnica have achieved here is what data center managers have long been seeking – a simple, cost effective way to easily manage their disk resources and address potential single points of failures in their vital NFS/CIFS files shares. Previously, SAC’s choice would have been restricted to either picking 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 infrastructure.”

DataCore’s design at SAC employs dual copies of the SANsymphony-V software providing high-availability mirroring and performance acceleration layered beneath clustered file shares (NAS) integral to Windows Servers 2008 Enterprise. SAC can now employ and reutilize any standard storage device for disk space, ranging from standard hard drives to existing external disk arrays offered by the popular storage systems vendors. With the solution, splitting the file share cluster remains across two machines, while the DataCore software runs on two separate servers dedicated to managing the block storage virtualization.

New DataCore White Paper: Automated Storage Tiering

http://searchnetworking.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1313432538_596.htm

http://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1313432538_596.html

Like they say in the housing market, the top 3 factors that determine price are location, location, and location. The same can be said for storage real estate. Poor choices placing data will cost you dearly. Unlike home buying habits, user access patterns change very frequently. Content that was driving interest one day becomes old news the next. There’s no way you could possibly take the time to shuffle information around to keep up with their fickle ways. That’s where insider knowledge and a little automation come in handy.

Read on to learn more about how to save space and money.

AWO Workers' Welfare Association has Implemented a Flexible and Scalable IT Infrastructure with Virtualization Software from DataCore Software and Citrix

http://news.yahoo.com/awo-workers-welfare-association-implemented-flexible-scalable-infrastructure-070827080.html

“Conventional SAN hardware without DataCore storage virtualization would not have offered us the necessary scalability and flexibility,” states Karsten Frommolt, the IT manager at AWO Düsseldorf. “With DataCore, we were able to resolve our roadblocks in regards to performance bottlenecks, easily providing capacity and reducing costs. We needed to cost-effectively build a redundant and therefore highly available storage environment within our budget constraints. DataCore Software convinced us with the flexibility and scalability of its software solution. It also gave us independence from hardware manufacturers so we have greater control going forward.”

AWO Düsseldorf Case Study - http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/AWO-Dsseldorf.aspx

DataCore Software Customers Showcase Why Software-Based Solutions Can Lower Total Cost of Storage and Empower the Full Business Value of Virtualization

http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/08/08/datacore-software-showcases-why-software-based-solutions-can-lower-total-cost-of-storage-and-empower-the-full-business-value-of-virtualization.aspx

DataCore Software today showcased customer examples and announced the availability of a new white paper titled “Achieving the Full Business Value of Virtualization with a Scalable Software-Based Virtualization Solution” authored by International Data Corp (IDC), the premier global provider of market intelligence. The paper details storage efficiency increases due to heterogeneous storage virtualization. It highlights key IDC recommendations for improving utilization and productivity by consolidating assets, automating provisioning, leveraging storage tiers and combining server and storage virtualization to significantly reduce capital and operational expenses associated with facilities and infrastructure.

The paper, combined with DataCore’s growing base of customer testimonials, highlights how the company’s virtualization software solutions overcome budget, performance and business continuity challenges impacting the transition and broader adoption of virtualization. In particular it uncovers how to make “better use of ‘in place’ storage assets while also ensuring that IT organizations can fully achieve a return on their investments.”

Compelling Economic Benefits

“A key business value of DataCore’s SANsymphony-V technology is its device-independent approach: the software removes hardware dependencies that can limit customers’ purchasing power and flexibility by locking them into specific vendor technologies and price points,” said Peter Dobler, assistant vice president, Corporate MIS Dept., Northeast Health. “DataCore brings a rich set of features, including auto-tiering and thin provisioning which can significantly impact cost savings. These features work across many flavors and brands; therefore, they can spread the benefits across the entire infrastructure and not to just a single device. They extend the useful life of past storage investments, and provide more competitive choices when shopping for new equipment resulting in greater ROI, lower total cost of ownership and reduced business risk.”

As noted in the white paper:

• The DataCore SANsymphony-V solution allows organizations to leverage the amazing processing power of today's multicore x86 server platforms to virtualize installed storage systems while also tuning them to meet specific needs for performance, capacity, availability and cost-effectiveness.
  
  
• The DataCore productivity and cost-saving software solutions:
  
  • Improve utilization of existing storage assets (in many cases doubling useful capacity), thereby delaying the need to buy new storage systems;
  • Enable more modular and seamless storage expansion, thereby reducing the need to pre-buy capacity that may not be needed for several years; 
  • Optimize and automate storage provisioning, tiering storage resources for optimal performance and capacity, and managing data protection and auto-recovery across installed heterogeneous storage systems, thereby reducing management complexity; and 
  • Enable seamless cross-system data movement, enabling easy and intelligent migration or replication of data between storage classes.
    
    

“We help organizations virtualize in half the time and half the expense without wasting either on the need to replace or write off their storage investments,” said Linda Haury, vice president of marketing at DataCore Software. “DataCore customers routinely report 200 percent or more gains in performance, a doubling in administrative productivity, no downtime due to storage failures, and cost savings of 60 percent or more. This is accomplished through greater ‘open market’ purchasing power, better use of storage via auto-tiering and from greatly improving efficiencies of storage capacity utilization and provisioning from 30 percent typical usage rates to as much as 90 percent. Bottom line: DataCore can remove inefficiencies and fully maximize your IT investments.”

A few recent examples of customer gains realized through DataCore include:

• AcXess: This cloud services provider enables on-demand sales demos, proof-of-concept labs and training sessions in virtualized environments for thousands of employees, partners and customers worldwide. Through the combined use of DataCore and Microsoft Hyper-V, the organization has doubled its number of client users year-over-year and grown their business 300 percent. AcXess also reports a number of economic benefits from the solution that includes a savings of $5 million in hardware costs.

• Hemer Pulmonary Clinic: A Center for Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery, the German clinic implemented DataCore SANsymphony-V and realized a $425,000 cost savings. More than this, it has seen an increase in performance and greater efficiency in supporting over 50 VMware virtualized database and application servers all while adding a new level of high availability to its hospital operations.

• ISCO Industries: This worldwide manufacturing and piping distributor has saved at least $100,000 by re-purposing existing equipment and prior investments using DataCore and VMware. For the first time, ISCO’s UNIX system, regarded as its “bread and butter,” is fully redundant and synchronized in real-time to a disaster recovery site. In the past, when ISCO lost data, the main accounting and sales system took 16-24 hours to recover – a process which now takes only minutes.

• Scottsdale Community College: Based on technology from DataCore and Citrix, the College created an end-to-end virtualization solution that now provides access to more than 220 applications, serving 11,000 students and 1,000 employees. It is now saving $250,000 annually that would have been spent on hardware, accompanied by a marked improvement in storage performance.

To read the full IDC white paper sponsored by DataCore, please visit “Achieving the Full Business Value of Virtualization with a Scalable Software-Based Virtualization Solution.”

Virtual-Strategy Magazine: Q&A with Augie Gonzalez of DataCore Software

VSM: What are the biggest surprises organizations today are encountering in their server and desktop virtualization projects?

AG: From where I’m standing, lack of attention to storage-related matters generates the most turmoil and angst. You see this especially as customers struggle to migrate their line of business applications to virtualized environments. The storage provisioning, maintenance, and tuning practices that they mastered in segregated server configurations largely break down. This collapse ripples across to business continuity procedures and data protection techniques, upsetting even their hardware refresh and purchasing rhythm.

This is understandably so. Versatile virtual machines and virtual desktops lure concentration away from the mundane, seemingly stiff realities of physical storage devices. But today, we can harness a close relative of server virtualization, storage virtualization software, for an operationally and economically attractive solution – if we plan ahead.

VSM: What are the consequences of neglecting storage-related problems?

AG: There’s no turning your back on these issues. Unanticipated storage costs, availability concerns, and performance bottlenecks are the most critical factors bringing server consolidation and desktop virtualization projects to a standstill.

In fact, in DataCore’s recent survey, “The State of Virtualization”, we found that a majority of medium- and large-enterprise IT organizations mistakenly overlook storage when implementing a virtualized operating environment. The data revealed that nearly half of the respondents (43 percent) had not anticipated the impact that storage would have on their server and desktop virtualization costs or had not started a virtualization project because the storage-related costs “seem too high.”

This has moved the storage issue – its high cost, inadequate performance, inflexibility, and vendor lock in – to the front burner in virtualization discussions.

VSM: How does the rise of “Big Data” compound the concern for data center managers? How can they better deal with this issue?

AG: Whereas server and desktop virtualization help consolidate and concentrate storage in common pools, Big Data has the opposite effect. It's widespread – “a lot here, a lot more there” – and there are too many places to keep track of. Add to the location problem, different brands and generations of storage devices that house it, and you can see the predicament.

Some pundits suggest standardizing on specific hardware storage blocks to retain some sanity. But they ignore the insanely fast rate at which hardware becomes obsolete, which leads to healthy storage diversity in the first place. Not to mention the outrageous costs to forklift upgrade everything already in use.

My advice is don’t even try to solve the hardware problem by confining yourself to one piece of gear, it doesn’t stand a chance. Instead, steal a play from the desktop virtualization handbook. Accept and encourage equipment diversity while taking measures to uniformly manage it. In the world of disks, you do this by layering a common control plane across central and scattered storage assets using storage virtualization software.

The software lets you take advantage of the many nuances that help differentiate one disk array from another as well as the extra safeguard that separate sites afford you, without burying you in minutia.

VSM: What additional benefits does device-independent storage virtualization bring to virtualized IT environments and how does it enable those who have approached it properly?

AG: There’s just too much to cover here. Think about how hypervisors liberate you from the constraints of physical server cabinets and you can quickly grasp the beneficial operational and financial impact of storage virtualization. The storage enclosures no longer define you, nor limit your choice or mobility. When one box or one site is out of service, another one seamlessly takes over for it. Achieving cost-effective, highly-available, and fault tolerant disks that traverse hardware boundaries would be on the top of the list.

With regard to economics, enhanced capital asset utilization, increased efficiency, and lower operational costs always get the most praise from DataCore customers. The benefits touch nearly every part of their IT infrastructure. As a result, organizations rapidly expand the scope of their storage virtualization program following the initial rollout to encompass conventional physical servers as well.

VSM: Given the urgency, how does DataCore expedite the successful transition to a fully virtualized storage infrastructure?

AG: First and foremost, DataCore leverages storage and server assets already on the data center floor to get you going right away. There is no waiting to “rip and replace” equipment before you get started. It’s like moving right into the house remodeling project without going through the arduous and dusty demolition phase. None of that uneasy feeling that you may be way over your head.

Instead, the conversion occurs in self-paced stages, with small incremental investments, rather than large upfront capital expenditures. I’d say it’s a very pragmatic cutover matched to your priorities and windows of opportunity. Really, nobody wants to take a big leap and you don’t have to with DataCore.

Enterprise Systems Journal: DataCore - The Switzerland of Storage Virtualization Solutions Providers?

http://esj.com/blogs/enterprise-insights/2011/07/datacore-storage-virtualization.aspx

Storage managers are often pressured to buy storage from a single vendor. That, in turns, leads to being pinned down to a particular vendor’s virtualization management solution.

I hate having my options limited. I want to pick best-of-breed hardware and solution. Mix-and-match is my motto. When it comes to storage virtualization software, DataCore seems to share my values. It’s new SANsymphony-V dynamically relocates workloads across pools of any type of storage equipment -- including SSDs -- and from any vendor. Because it sits high-enough up on the interface ladder, DataCore’s director of product marketing Augie Gonzalez told me, any new storage device you add can work instantly with SANsymphony -- no updates needed.

“We apply the same device-independent approach to auto-tiering as we do with all our high-value services, including thin provisioning, caching, synchronous mirroring, asynchronous replication, snapshots and CDP. Let’s just say it arms you with a lot more bargaining muscle when the next disk hardware purchase comes around.”

DataCore’s President and CEO, George Teixeira, told me recently that his company’s product neutrality is what gives IT the greatest flexibility to move seldom-used sections of files to a slower tier of storage (read: cheaper disk) and most-in-demand or most-important sections to more expensive (read: faster) storage devices. Although the product’s chief benefit is that it handles all the messy details in the background automatically, there are rules (“policies”) you can define to override its decisions (for example, you can exclude some workloads from auto-tiering). Furthermore, if you no longer have enough capacity in a tier to to meet your requirements, it will tell you so.

The approach has two advantages -- both economic -- and both explained succinctly in their press release:

“This expanded choice gives customers the opportunity to shop for the best value at each tier from competing sources without having to discard what they purchased last year.”

Keeping legacy equipment alive is critical -- so is shopping for the best deal on new equipment.

Hardware-based approaches restrict tiers “to premium-priced trays within a single storage enclosure or frame, DataCore says. Its infrastructure-wide software “spans multiple storage systems from potentially different suppliers.”

Flexibility is paramount. Tiers can be made up of high-capacity but lower-priced SATA drives from Company A (or Company A and B and C) or consist of multiple SAS midrange disk systems from the same or different vendors. You can mix and match capacity, technology, and manufacturers in the same tier -- it all appears as a pool from your control panel. SSDs, which cost up to 10 times more than conventional drives, are likewise supported in a tier.

The company says that more than 50 percent of stored data turns to “inactive” status within just 60 days of its creation. If you’re using high-priced storage for it, you’re wasting precious IT budget dollars.

In its press release, the company says its customers “have reported up to 60 percent cost savings with SANsymphony-V alone, and now with the ability to automate and dynamically optimize tiered storage capacity, incremental savings of 20 percent or more are now possible. The final result is an extremely cost effecting, self-tuning system.” Not to mention one that doesn’t pin you down.

DataCore Software Adds Device-Independent Auto-Tiering to Its Storage Virtualisation Software

http://www.it-director.com/technology/data_mgmt/news_release.php?rel=26231

DataCore Software today announced a state of the art advance in automated tiering of disks. The new option for its comprehensive SANsymphony-V product automatically relocates disk blocks among pools of different storage devices, keeping the most demanding workloads operating at peak speeds. Less critical and infrequently accessed disk blocks naturally gravitate towards lower cost disks.

New Infrastructure-Wide Advance Opens up Customer ‘Purchasing Power’ for Greater Cost Savings
Unlike hardware-embedded schemes that confine tiers to premium-priced trays within a single storage enclosure or frame, DataCore’s infrastructure-wide software spans multiple storage systems from potentially different suppliers. This expanded choice gives customers the opportunity to shop for the best value at each tier from competing sources without having to discard what they purchased last year.

“SANsymphony-V customers can immediately take advantage of auto-tiering using whatever equipment they have on the floor,” notes Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing at DataCore. “We apply the same device-independent approach to auto-tiering as we do with all our high-value services, including thin provisioning, caching, synchronous mirroring, asynchronous replication, snapshots and CDP. Let’s just say it arms you with a lot more bargaining muscle when the next disk hardware purchase comes around.”

For example, tiers may consist of high-capacity, low-priced Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) drives from one vendor, a set ofSerial Attached SCSI (SAS) midrange disk systems from another, and a new collection of high-speed Solid State Disk (SSD) cards from yet a third vendor. DataCore manages these independent racks as a diverse virtual pool under a common administrative interface. Of course, the software works just as well if all tiers happen to carry the same brand.

Addressing the Cost Optimization Challenge through Automation and Transparency
The drivers, challenges and trends impacting tiered storage management are well known:

• Data Growth: The amount of data in most organisations is doubling every 12 to 24 months.
• Cost Deltas: Performance and high-availability oriented storage devices and SSDs typically cost 3 to 10 times more than lower tier capacity oriented storage.
• Access Frequency: Over 50 percent of stored data becomes inactive within 60 days of creation.
• Hidden Costs: The effort to constantly classify tiers by access frequency rates and manually move data between tiers can quickly add up to costs that eliminate any potential savings.

DataCore customers have reported up to 60 percent cost savings with SANsymphony-V alone, and now with the ability to automate and dynamically optimise tiered storage capacity, incremental savings of 20 percent or more are now possible. The final result is an extremely cost effecting, self-tuning system.

“Device independent auto-tiering is a major addition to SANsymphony-V,” said Randy Kerns, senior strategist at Evaluator Group. “Beyond the obvious cost savings, it also simplifiesinfrastructure-wide storage management by optimising the promotion and demotion of disk blocks transparently in background operations. Automation eases theadministration tasks and allows users to benefit from the performance gained with tiering.”

Choice of Auto-Tiering Policies
Customers govern DataCore’s auto-tiering behavior by choosing among a set of pre-defined rules. For simple, hands-off operations, the software tracks which disk blocks are most active and promotes them to the top-performing tier. The most frequently used blocks gravitate towards the faster, higher-performing devices. By auto-tiering at the disk block level, rather than at the file level, hot spots on file systems enjoy the best response compared to seldom-used areas.

System administrators can be more selective as well. They may designate from which tier a virtual disk is allocated. This option ensures that the most pressing information can be retrieved and updated faster, regardless of access frequency. Similarly, less important volumes may be relegated to lower cost, slower performing tiers, to prevent them from competing for more precious disks.

Still other virtual disks may bypass auto-tiering altogether. They can just as easily be allocated from pools with devices ofsimilar price/performance attributes.

Infrastructure-wide caching extends high-performance tiers
The quick ascent of SSDs into mainstream IT hasmade auto-tiering a necessity. Specifically, it helps reserve these premium storage resources for the most demanding applications.

In addition, DataCore adaptive caching techniques boost the native performance of SSDs and conventional hard drives, while reducing the duty cycle on these more costly resources. That translates into better utilisation and a longer life for these exceptional assets.

Pricing and Availability
Auto-tiering is included at no charge for SANsymphony-V node licenses supporting over 100TBs or can be added as an optional feature for the midrange of the SANsymphony-V product line, priced at $2,000 U.S.D. per DataCore node.

Dethleffs Triples its SAN Performance and Speeds up ERP applications with DataCore, HP and FusionIO

DataCore performance acceleration software in combination with HP servers and Fusion-IO SSDs puts Dethleff’s ERP system into the fast lane


“The combination of HP hardware and DataCore software was ideal; the cost / performance ratio met our needs and since we have implemented, we are not looking back we do not regret this decision at all.”


"In comparison to the previous systems we have seen a significant enhancement in performance with the combination of standard HP hardware and DataCore’s virtualization software for storage. With DataCore installed, the phone calls to our IT department complaining about slow response times have suddenly stopped”, confirms IT-director Michael Fleschhut.


Read the full case study: Dethleffs Triples its SAN Performance and Speeds up ERP applications with DataCore, HP and FusionIO

ISCO Industries Utilizes DataCore Software and Xiotech to Take Its Virtualization Infrastructure and VDI to the Next Level

http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/07/21/isco-industries-utilizes-datacore-software-to-take-its-virtualization-infrastructure-and-vdi-to-the-next-level.aspx

Blazing Fast Performance

“Our performance has gone through the roof,” continued Duncan. “It was not unusual to see 10, 15, or 20 milliseconds of latency on a read prior to DataCore and Xiotech. And that was on volumes that were dedicated to Tier 1 storage only. Now it is one or two milliseconds, tops, on most of our transactions. Moreover, reports from the ERP system are literally blazing through – they hardly take any time at all compared to what we were used to.”

With DataCore’s caching software and the high-speed Xiotech running in tandem, system administrators have seen more than a 35 percent increase in speed and responsiveness from the company’s terminal and mail servers.

ISCO Industries, a worldwide polyethylene pipe distributor, has implemented DataCore’s newest software release, SANsymphony-V. The company is running nearly fully virtual after implementing DataCore and VMware to virtualize the majority of its desktops, servers and storage infrastructure. Deployed in combination with Xiotech storage, DataCore’s SANsymphony-V added a new level of flexibility and productivity and most importantly it addressed the persistent performance problems as well as the capacity management issues that ISCO Industries faced with its previously existing storage area network (SAN).

“Prior to implementing SANsymphony-V, the performance and latency issues we faced were hurting our efficiency in many different areas,” stated Kim Byram, director of business and information systems at ISCO Industries. “Now, with DataCore and Xiotech running in tandem, we have seen our latency issues completely disappear. Plus our speed of backups and response time in generating reports has been cut drastically. More efficiency means more systems uptime and no more systems slowdown because you no longer have processes and backups running during somebody’s working hours.”

Four years ago, ISCO deployed a SAN from Compellent (acquired by Dell) to cope with the storage growth the company was experiencing as it virtualized its entire network. However, ISCO kept hitting a proverbial performance “wall” and system administrators would have to scramble to add storage space because the Compellent SAN was falsely reporting that it had maxed-out its capacity.

When DataCore was deployed on Xiotech, the IT team migrated data over to the new system, which was thin-provisioned through DataCore storage virtualization software. “We went from nine or ten terabytes of used space down to six terabytes of available space just by doing the migration,” notes T.J. Duncan, system administrator at ISCO. “In terms of capacity management and higher utilization rates, we have seen enormous benefits and now we have means of recovering disk space without having to create new volumes all the time.”

Today, DataCore’s SANsymphony-V serves as ISCO’s de facto SAN, and is responsible for managing and serving storage across the entire infrastructure. This enables the company to get the most out of its infrastructure with its software-based storage virtualization approach. “With our existing SAN, things were coming to a creeping halt on our network,” explained Byram. “And when we moved everything over to the very reliable Xiotech platform, we learned that we actually had a lot less data than what was being reported by our previous SAN.”

Blazing Fast Performance
“Our performance has gone through the roof,” continued Duncan. “It was not unusual to see 10, 15, or 20 milliseconds of latency on a read prior to DataCore and Xiotech. And that was on volumes that were dedicated to Tier 1 storage only. Now it is one or two milliseconds, tops, on most of our transactions. Moreover, reports from the ERP system are literally blazing through – they hardly take any time at all compared to what we were used to.”

With DataCore’s caching software and the high-speed Xiotech running in tandem, system administrators have seen more than a 35 percent increase in speed and responsiveness from the company’s terminal and mail servers. Now that the DataCore-Xiotech solution now manages 13 terabytes of total data, ISCO started seeing the following benefits:

• Cost containment – DataCore has saved ISCO at least $100,000 because they were able to re-purpose six existing servers supporting VMware ESX and use them to create the DataCore disaster recovery SAN server, as well as ESX servers for disaster recovery, and the DataCore VDI server.
• Risk reduction – For the first time, the UNIX system which is the company’s “bread and butter,” is now fully redundant. The entire system and all of the data is synchronized in real-time to the disaster recovery site, where a second UNIX server is maintained. Before, if ISCO lost its data, it would have taken the company 16-24 hours to get the main accounting and sales system back up and running. Now, the company can do this in minutes.
• Improved productivity – Productivity improvements are tied to the better responsiveness of the terminal servers and virtual desktops being supported. All servers have had 10-20 percent improvement in performance just by putting in the SANsymphony-V and Xiotech solution.

VDI, Servers, and Storage: End-to-End Virtualization Reduces Costs and Risks
According to ISCO, the company is nearly fully virtualized. It uses terminal servers as well as a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), depending on the users and their needs. VMware vSphere is used both for servers and desktops. Four VMware hosts run VMware ESX 4.1 at the production data center. There are 32 VMs running from that. The VMs comprise servers dealing with ISCO’s phone system, terminal servers, a web monitoring server (NIMBUS), and file sharing servers.

DataCore storage virtualization software runs both on both the production SAN and the disaster recovery SAN. Asynchronous replication is used to replicate UNIX system data remotely, and the company plans to embrace synchronous replication in the near future for added business continuity. DataCore’s newest release, SANsymphony-V, is deployed on another server to support the VDI environment. VDI consists of two hosts and 20 VMs. Ten virtual desktops are supported as well as 8 terminal servers in a load-balanced pool. Between 15 and 18 people per server are using VDI at any given point in time.

New Case Study additions: n|Frame, Harting Technology Group, The WIŚNIOWSKI Company and Municipality of Casalecchio di Reno

n|Frame and DataCore: Empowering Cloud and IT services for Web and mission-critical applications to perform without fail

http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/nFrame.aspx



Harting Technology Group: DataCore Storage Virtualization Software Lowers Cost of Ownership and Accelerates Performance for SAP and Critical Enterprise Applications

http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/Harting-Technology-Group.aspx

For the SAP environment specifically, this meant up to 30 percent faster server response times.

Additionally, the DataCore environment enabled the integrity testing of the SAP R3 databases, which once took eight hours, to now be completed in just two hours –a 400% speed-up.



The WIŚNIOWSKI Company: Large manufacturer of garage doors and fences selects DataCore SANsymphony-V

http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/WISNIOWSKI.aspx

"Thanks to DataCore’s SANsymphony-V software our production is more efficient. The malfunction of a disk array does not disrupt or cause a stoppage of the whole company."



Municipality of Casalecchio di Reno Deploys DataCore’s Virtualization Sofware

http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/Municipality-of-Casalecchio-di-Reno.aspx

“The DataCore solution fully answered all our needs, offering features and performance that were beyond our expectations. The DataCore virtualization software helped us cut down considerably both our hardware and energy costs,” states Andrea Ventura, IT manager for the Casalecchio di Reno Municipality.

HP and DataCore Alliance Solution Brief

Check out the recently released Solution Brief which highlights how the combination of DataCore and HP can "Accelerate your virtualization plans" http://www.datacore.com/Libraries/Document_Library/DataCore-HP_Joint_Solution_Brief.sflb.ashx

DataCore Software’s Storage Virtualization Webcast Series Continues With Part Three: “Achieving Off-the-Charts Performance Management”

Storage virtualization is becoming a must-have in contemporary IT – Webcast series educates the storage industry on key aspects and challenges of managing storage

DataCore Software announced the upcoming, third installment of its “Storage Virtualization” webcast series with “Storage in the Fast Lane -- Achieving Off-the-Charts Performance Management.” This webcast will take place on Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 11:30 a.m. (EDT). To register, please visit: “Storage in the Fast Lane -- Achieving Off-the-Charts Performance Management.”

Part Three: Storage in the Fast Lane -- Achieving Off-the-Charts Performance Management

This third installment of the webcast series will investigate the following:

• What is performance management?
• What are the challenges to performance efficiency?
• How can storage virtualization help you to get the best performance from your infrastructure?
  
  

Join host and moderator Jon Toigo for Part Three of the 'Storage Virtualization for Rock Stars' webcast series. To register, please visit: “Storage in the Fast Lane -- Achieving Off-the-Charts Performance Management.”

Link: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/804452936

Storage Virtualization WhitePapers and Reference Materials
To access the two previous webcasts and the tutorial guides from Part One and Part Two of the “For Rock Stars” webcast series – “Hitting the Perfect Chord in Storage Efficiency” and “Capacity Management’s Sweet Notes” – please visit:
http://www.datacore.com/Software/Closer-Look/webcasts.aspx

How Many Tiers Do You Want?

Two recent articles got me thinking about the current limitations of tiered storage, and where it’s going. Ellen Messmer at Network World reported on some comments by Gartner analyst Stanley Zaffos about the chaos in the public cloud storage market. Some vendors, such as Amazon and Nirvanix, are gung-ho on public cloud storage, while others, like Iron Mountain and EMC, have pulled out of the business. While the cost comparison looks more than favorable—Gartner’s estimates is about 75 cents to a dollar per gigabyte per month for in-house storage vs. as low as 3 cents for cloud storage—Zaffos rightly points out the many variables IT needs to consider, among them latency, limited bandwidth, and security. In his remarks, He called out a couple of alternatives to public cloud storage, including a hybrid approach mixing public and private storage—in effect, making public cloud storage just another tier.

At CTOEdge, Mike Vizard has been talking for some time about the rising importance of data management and storage systems to deal with a world in which “multiple tiers of storage are soon going to be the rule rather than the exception.” In a recent blog post, he discusses building a new tier of storage for what he calls “warm data,” which requires access speeds somewhere between production applications and everything else (e.g., backup, archive, DR). He noted IBM’s new Netezza High Capacity Appliance, which isn’t so much a storage tier as a packaged storage application that gives quicker access to petabyte-sized data warehouses to satisfy compliance requirements.

These are two extremes of the storage spectrum, and a good illustration of some of the drivers behind the evolution of tiered storage, which is all about matching networked storage capabilities to application and business needs (e.g., speed, capacity, availability, security). In an ideal world, every application would have exactly the right kind of storage (i.e., infinite tiering granularity). In the real world, differences among technologies, vendors, protocols, and the like make this impractical, and the actual granularity possible with tiered storage is very low, which means that each tier is a compromise.

Like Mike Vizard, I’m convinced that the evolution of storage is taking us in the direction of more and more tiers to deliver a better match to application requirements. We’re going to see low-cost cloud storage treated as just another tier, for services like archiving and long-term backup. We’re going to see increasingly capable private cloud solutions with an increasing variety of tiers within them. And we’re going to see the “fragmentation” of what today we call “managed services” into an increasingly granular menu of capabilities like high availability, disaster recovery, compliance support, and similar “tiers” of storage-based services.

Storage virtualization software, with its ability to abolish storage silos, is going to be a major part of this evolution. The key will be its adoption by more and more service providers like Host.net and External IT who will use it in their own data centers and their customers’ data centers to provide seamless access to storage that matches application and business needs at a very fine granularity, whether in-house or out in the cloud. The result will be a storage environment in which IT can basically dial in as many tiers as they need, without worrying about the cake collapsing on them.


Photo by Pink Cake Box.

Are Storage Costs Driving You Crazy?

Almost thirty years ago novelist and screenwriter Rita Mae Brown defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” I’m quite certain she didn’t have storage hardware purchasing in mind when she wrote that, but it’s a perfect description of the usual IT strategy in this regard: buy more.

To be fair, I’ll admit that it’s not like IT has a lot of choice. Factors like server and desktop virtualization (Gartner predicts a 600% growth in storage capacity over the next three years due to these technologies alone), increasingly onerous data retention regulatory requirements, and the growth of rich media are driving an ever-increasing demand for storage. But the situation is definitely one in which “business as usual” is simply insane. It’s time for an intervention.

To explain, I’m going to turn to Jon Toigo, Chairman of The Data Management Institute LLC, who is a master of the “picture worth a thousand words.”
Even a cursory glance at his infographic shows the primary reasons why storage hardware is driving IT crazy.

First off, storage accounts for between one-third and three-quarters of IT hardware spending.

Second, the annualized total cost of ownership for storage is four to five times the initial acquisition expense. Putting in the boxes is just the start of your adventure: now you have to manage the storage, protect the data (e.g., backup, mirroring, etc.), and pay for power and cooling.

Third—and this is definitely crazy-making—once you’ve got all this wonderful storage in place, you find that you can’t use it efficiently: only about 30% of your storage ends up doing anything really useful. The rest is inert, allocated but unused, orphaned, or used to store stuff that’s of no use to your business.

That means you have to buy three times as much storage as you need just to make sure you don’t run out. But that just puts you back in the same insane loop, and you won’t get different results no matter how much storage you throw at the problem.

So you need to stage an intervention. And it can’t be a half-way effort, either.

The solution to this craziness is storage virtualization, which can boost your storage efficiency dramatically, make data protection easier, and reduce your storage management burden, all of which will drive down your storage costs as a percentage of IT spend. (You can get more details on storage virtualization and storage efficiency in Jon’s new white paper, Storage Virtualization for Rock Stars.)

But you have to take it all the way. Leaving storage virtualization capabilities locked up in proprietary array vendor controllers will leave you with islands of storage and put you right back in the inefficiency loop, albeit at a higher level. You’ll be hostage to your storage hardware vendor when it comes to expanding your storage infrastructure, and find it difficult to eke the maximum useful life out of your arrays as they reach end-of-support.

Better to declare your entire independence from storage craziness with storage virtualization software that’s vendor-agnostic and endures over multiple generations of hardware. That way you can squeeze the maximum efficiency out of your existing storage infrastructure and be free to add new storage from any source, on your schedule and within your budget, while your storage virtualization software continues to handle the details of efficiency, data protection, and management as it always has.

Now that’s sanity.

Graphic Source: Toigo Partners International, LLC

New IDC White Paper on DataCore ROI/TCO, New Jon Toigo Paper on Storage Efficiency

Check out the Updated Industry Analyst and Expert Opinions Page on the DataCore Website
Recently updated with the latest reports and the analysts like those at Gartner Group who are briefed and cover DataCore Software
http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/What-Others-are-Saying/Analyst-Reports.aspx

White Paper on Storage Virtualization Software and Storage Efficiency
Download the latest 'Must Read' white paper on Storage Efficiency by Jon Toigo: STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION FOR ROCK STARS Part 1: Storage Efficiency
It does a great job of overviewing the benefits of Storage Virtualization Software and covering the compelling economics.

IDC White Paper on DataCore: Achieving the Full Business Value of Virtualization with a Scalable Software-Based Storage Virtualization Solution
An excellent paper on the value proposition of virtualization software for storage by IDCs Rick Villars, the top expert on virtualization and storage virtualization: http://www.datacore.com/Libraries/Document_Library/The_Business_Value_of_Software-based_Storage_Virtualization.sflb.ashx

IDC Opinion & Summary

Today's information-based economy demands that IT managers enhance the business value of existing and planned IT investments while simultaneously reducing the costs of IT operations. Server consolidation and broader adoption of server virtualization are some of the key strategies IT teams are counting on to meet these goals.

Dealing with storage, however, is one of the most critical technical and economic roadblocks to broad adoption of virtualization in many of these organizations. Limits include the up-front direct cost associated with replacing storage with complex networked storage systems, the added operational cost of managing networked storage systems, and the inherent inefficiencies of many of these storage systems.

Storage virtualization software such as DataCore's SANsymphony-V addresses many of these challenges. It allows organizations to make better use of "in place" storage assets while also ensuring that IT organizations can fully achieve a return on their investments in a virtualized server environment. They can achieve these goals by quickly taking advantage of the rapid cost declines and performance increases available in today's standard server platforms. IDC finds that the use of virtualized storage with solutions such as DataCore's makes it possible for companies to:

• Consolidate storage and server assets
• Increase the number of virtualized servers running on individual physical servers while doubling storage utilization rates for installed storage
• Leverage lower-cost/higher-capacity storage tiers that can significantly cut the cost of acquiring new storage assets
• Improve application and information availability while shrinking backup times
• Significantly reduce the cost to meet the performance and business continuity objectives of virtualized IT organizations

DataCore Software Names Former Citrix Executive as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, More...

Linda Haury to direct DataCore's strategic marketing efforts

“DataCore is positioned to become a powerhouse in one of the industry’s fastest growing software segments,” said Haury. “Coming out of the desktop and server virtualization space, I can tell you firsthand how essential they are to virtualization projects. Needless to say, I’m eager to commence this exciting role.”

Virtual Strategy Magazine:
http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2011/06/09/datacore-software-names-former-citrix-executive-vice-president-worldwide-marketing

Sandhill.com:
http://www.sandhill.com/news/exec_moves.php?id=569

IT Director:
http://www.it-director.com/business/change/news_release.php?rel=25506

SNSeurope:
http://www.snseurope.com/news_full.php?id=18505&title=DataCore-Software-names-former-Citrix-executive-as-Vice-President-of-Worldwide-Marketing

VirtualizationWorld:
http://www.virtualizationworld365.net/news_full.php?id=18505&title=DataCore-Software-names-former-Citrix-executive-as-Vice-President-of-Worldwide-Marketing

VMblog:
http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/06/09/datacore-software-names-former-citrix-executive-as-vice-president-of-worldwide-marketing.aspx

ChannelEMEA:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/09/2258385/datacore-software-names-former.html


Big Data: The Time is Now for Managing It and Leveraging the Advantages
http://www.dbta.com/Articles/Editorial/Trends-and-Applications/Big-Data-The-Time-is-Now-for-Managing-It-and-Leveraging-the-Advantages-75883.aspx

Big Data Storage

Leveraging the advantages big data has to offer in terms of global insight and better customer understanding requires smarter data management practices. Consider the storage side of the issue, another matter that makes big data perplexing to many organizations and administrators. A sizable segment of companies with fast-growing data stores in the IOUG survey spend more than one-fourth of their IT budgets on storage requirements.

Data growth is quickly becoming out of control and drives over-spending when it comes to data storage. Despite increasing IT budgets, the growing costs associated with storing more data create a data affordability gap that cannot be ignored. The response to this growth has been to continue funding expansion and add hardware. Technology advances have enabled us to gather more data faster than at any other time in our history which has been beneficial in many ways. Unfortunately, in order to keep pace with data growth, businesses have to provision more storage capacity which drives costs.

While there has been a relentless push in recent years to store multiplatform data on ever-larger disk arrays, big data demands moving in a different direction. "In contrast to years past, where information was neatly compartmentalized, big data has become widely distributed, scattered across many sites on different generations of storage devices and equipment brands-some up in the clouds, others down in the basement," George Teixeira, president and CEO of DataCore Software, tells DBTA.

As result, centralized storage is "both impractical and flawed," Teixeira says. "It's impractical because it's incredibly difficult to lump all that gargantuan data in one neat little bucket. It's flawed because doing so would expose you to catastrophic single points of failure and disruption." To address widely distributed data storage, he recommends approaches such as storage virtualization software, backed up by mirror images of data which are kept updated in at least two different locations. "This allows organizations to harness big data in a manner that reduces operational costs, improves efficiency, and non-disruptively swap hardware in and out as it ages," he says.


CIO update: The Pros and Cons of SSD in the Enterprise
http://www.cioupdate.com/trends/article.php/11047_3933741_2/The-Pros-and-Cons-of-SSD-in-the-Enterprise.htm

Storage virtualization software helps shape the shared storage infrastructure required by virtual IT environments and takes good advantage of SSDs where appropriate, reducing the write duty-cycle by caching upstream of the cards to minimize actual writes to media. This effectively extends the useful life of these premium-priced assets.

"It can also make modest sized SSDs appear to have much larger logical capacity by thin provisioning its resources," said Augie Gonzalez, director of Product Marketing at DataCore Software. "The sage advice is consider SSDs as one element of the physical storage configuration, but put your money on device-independent storage virtualization software to take full advantage of them."


TechNet Radio: IT Time - The “Caring and Feeding” for Shared Storage in Clustered Hyper-V Environments
http://64.4.11.252/en-us/edge/technet-radio-it-time-the-caring-and-feeding-for-shared-storage-in-clustered-hyper-v-environments.aspx?query=1

Its IT Time, and in today’s episode Blain Barton interviews Augie Gonzalez, Director of Product Marketing at DataCore Software. Tune in for this lively conversation as they discuss how DataCore’s SANsymphony-V can help solve potential storage related issues in Hyper-V clusters.


'Virtualizing' disparate storage resources
http://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Virtualizing-disparate-storage-resources

Would you like to get a point-in-time snapshot of your disparate storage resources regardless of which disk array supplier houses your data? Would you like to create a universal storage pool out of your Fibre Channel, SCSI, EIDE, and IBM SSA drives? Would you like to substantially improve performance yields from equipment already on your floor?

According to DataCore Software, these are just a few of the advantages that network storage pools powered by the company's SANsymphony are providing - without shutting down, rewiring, or overloading application servers.

"Currently, anyone who has legacy SCSI disk arrays alongside Fibre Channel and EMC boxes are having to use various, vendor-specific utilities to monitor and control their storage resources," says Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing for DataCore Software. "With SANsymphony, a central administrator can take overall custody of disparate storage resources in a homogeneous way. No longer do they have to be overwhelmed by each particular disk vendor's administrative nuances."

Gonzalez says SANsymphony's built-in caching algorithms are adding new value to existing storage assets. "Many people have equipment on the floor that doesn't live up to its performance potential," he says. "Now you can come in after the fact and accelerate their I/O response time..."

DataCore Software Helping New Zealand's Leading Port Company to Build Virtualized Storage Infrastructure

http://virtualization.tmcnet.com/topics/virtualization/articles/183063-datacore-software-helping-new-zealands-leading-port-company.htm

A key player in storage virtualization and iSCSI SAN software, DataCore Software Corporation recently announced the deployment of its DataCore SANsymphony storage virtualization software by Ports of Auckland, New Zealand’s leading port company.

Ports of Auckland is going to use the software to create a dynamic and resilient virtual storage infrastructure. In order to deploy SANsymphony advanced storage virtualization software, the company will not require to make changes in hardware. Thus the investment is expected to help cost-effectively support the port company’s server virtualization environment as well as its business model.

One of the largest in New Zealand, Ports of Auckland supports the international trade on a 24/7 basis by providing a broad range of cargo handling and logistics services. Although the server infrastructure at Ports of Auckland is extensively virtualized, its aging Storage Area Network (SAN) was disrupting IT processing at critical hours, the company revealed in a press release. But upgrade was difficult as it would have disrupted its operations. By deploying DataCore SANsymphony, the IT team is now able to keep applications running while switching out equipment with just a few minutes’ notice, officials at DataCore explained in the release.

According to managing director of APAC at DataCore Software Peter Thompson (News - Alert), DataCore’s storage virtualization software allows Ports of Auckland to move to a shared pool of storage and realize greater efficiency and business continuity as well as the ability to quickly react to new and expanding workloads placed on its systems.

“With DataCore, we have seen the benefits first-hand of improved uptime and being able to do operational maintenance without affecting our business. This gives us peace of mind. We’re also getting better utilization out of our storage hardware, and need less of it to achieve greater performance. With DataCore in place, our performance has been nothing short of phenomenan,” lead systems engineer at Ports of Auckland Craig Beetlestone commented in a statement.

The deployment of DataCore SANsymphony storage virtualization software has given Ports of Auckland and the IT team confidence that they are now in control of the company’s infrastructure.

“Looking forward, it’s good knowing that SANsymphony’s advanced storage virtualization features stay in place even as the hardware underneath changes. There’s none of the throw away we’ve experienced in the past when the functional intelligence was buried in the devices,” Beetlestone further explained.

The Port of Aukland Case Study and more info are available at: http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/Ports-of-Auckland.aspx

Ports of Auckland is New Zealand’s leading port company, serving the country’s vital international trade with a broad range of cargo handling and logistics services on a 24x7, 365-day-a-year basis. Ports of Auckland is responsible for running two maritime ports and an inland port in the Auckland region.

In 2010, the ports handled cargo equivalent to 13 percent of the country’s total GDP, twice as much as any other New Zealand port. Its east-coast Auckland seaport accounts for 37 percent of New Zealand’s total container trade. Ports of Auckland connects New Zealand’s importers and exporters with more than 165 international ports in nearly 70 countries.

Ports of Auckland Embarks on Storage Virtualization with DataCore Software to Keep Business Processes Flowing Smoothly and Reduce IT Costs
http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2011/06/02/ports-auckland-embarks-storage-virtualization-datacore-software-keep-business-processes-f

http://virtualization.sys-con.com/node/1858216

Computer Technology Review: Ports of Auckland deploys DataCore Software to keep business processes smooth and reduce IT cost
http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12833:ports-of-auckland-deploys-datacore-software-to-keep-business-processes-smooth-and-reduce-it-costs-&catid=231:storage-software&Itemid=2701181

DataCenter Journal: Storage Virtualization for Ports of Auckland
http://www.datacenterjournal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4742:storage-virtualization-for-ports-of-auckland&catid=142:the-daily-buzz&Itemid=100366

http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/06/02/ports-of-auckland-embarks-on-storage-virtualization-with-datacore-software-to-keep-business-processes-flowing-smoothly-and-reduce-it-costs.aspx

DataCore Software's SANsymphony-V Takes Industry by Storm

Solving the "Big Challenges" Stalling Today's Server and Desktop Virtualization Projects, Brings DataCore Widespread Industry Accolades

 

http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/06/01/datacore-software-s-sansymphony-v-takes-industry-by-storm.aspx

“We implemented DataCore software to protect our VMware environment from glitches in our storage infrastructure,” states Warren D. Nisbett, senior assistant managing director, Management Information Systems Unit, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank Ltd. “SANsymphony-V automatically replicates our virtual machine images and their data in real-time to our other hot site. Moreover, our system performance has greatly improved. We stand behind our selection of SANsymphony-V because it performs as advertised.”

DataCore Software announced broad praises and widespread momentum for its newest software release, SANsymphony- V. This next-generation solution eliminates storage-related barriers that prevent IT organizations from realizing the financial and operational goals of their virtualization initiatives.

“We have large data storage needs and found the flexibility we were seeking in SANsymphony-V,” states Peter Dobler, assistant vice president, Corporate MIS Dept., Northeast Health. “Moreover, SANsymphony-V’s interface is head and shoulders above what I am used to for storage management. It is very intuitive and easy to use. SANsymphony-V has made our end-to-end virtualization initiatives a reality. We virtualized our core network with Cisco and our servers with both VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer. SANsymphony-V was the final piece. Storage virtualization with SANsymphony-V rounded the whole thing out and it has worked really well.”

According to George Teixeira, president and CEO of DataCore Software, “The industry accolades and positive customer feedback speaks to the timeliness, relevance and value implicit in SANsymphony-V. While many had looked at virtualization from the narrow perspective of servers and desktops, they now recognize how our storage virtualization software forms the critical third dimension to a hardware-independent strategy.”

Announced in January 2011, 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.

“We deployed SANsymphony-V at all of our global affiliate locations,” says Jane Cebula, director, Global Infrastructure, SI Group. “We needed to protect our VMware environment by ensuring that data was synchronously mirrored and highly available. Now our data is secure because with SANsymphony-V we can replicate data in real-time to a secondary location, rather than contracting out for our D/R needs.”

In recent weeks, many independent assessments of DataCore’s impact to the virtualization segment have been conducted. These include:

Industry Analyst Recognition:

• Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Lab Validation Report – Results of comprehensive hands-on testing and performance benchmarking validated key value propositions of SANsymphony-V. The ESG Lab team summarized its test conclusions by stating: “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.”
• Taneja Group Profile – “Building the Virtual Infrastructure with DataCore SANsymphony-V” was released earlier this year by leading industry analyst firm, Taneja Group. As part of the profile, Taneja highlights DataCore’s solutions and use cases in Microsoft’s environment and touts that “For Hyper-V users that would like to build an enterprise-capable virtual infrastructure, DataCore SANsymphony-V is an ideal fit.”

To download the full ESG Lab Validation Report and Taneja Group Profile, please visit: DataCore Software – Featured Analyst Reports.

Product Reviews:

• eWEEK “Product to Watch” – eWEEK, the industry leader for strategic technology information, named SANsymphony-V one of its “Products to Watch” for 2011. Editors distinguished DataCore for using “software to reshape server and disk resources already in use in order to meet the unpredictable workloads that virtual machines and virtual desktops throw at newly consolidated data centers.” The “Products to Watch” article appears in the February 21, 2011 print edition of eWEEK.
• IAIT Independently Validates SANsymphony-V – After closely examining SANsymphony-V newly-added features and capabilities, independent IT analysis experts at the Institute for the Analysis of IT components (IAIT) concluded that the product “offers an extremely efficient central administration tool for storage virtualization with synchronous mirroring for high availability, asynchronous replication for disaster recovery and further important function like virtual disk pooling, thin provisioning, snapshots for backups and restores as well as CDP for Continuous Data Protection.” To download the full IAIT SANsymphony-V product review, please visit: DataCore Software – Product Reviews.

Awards:

• Everything Channel’s CRN 2011 Partner Programs Guide / 5-Star Partner Rating – DataCore was named to the Everything Channel CRN 2011 Partner Program Guide and was awarded a 5-Star Partner rating for the second straight year. As the definitive authority on vendors who have robust partner programs or products that service solution providers offer directly to the IT channel, Everything Channel recognized the DataCore Partner Program as offering a program that provides the best possible partnering elements for channel success.
• 2011 Network Computing Award – DataCore gained additional recognition in Europe by winning one of the the UK’s top networking accolades by scooping the Data Center Product of the Year Award at the prestigious 2011 Network Computing Awards. Established in 2005 to recognize best-of-breed, easy to use solutions that make the lives of network administrators and managers easier and more effective, readers had the opportunity to vote across a two month time period across several categories. The “DataCore Tackles Storage Virtualization Barrier” review appeared in the February issue of Network Computing.

“We implemented DataCore software to protect our VMware environment from glitches in our storage infrastructure,” states Warren D. Nisbett, senior assistant managing director, Management Information Systems Unit, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank Ltd. “SANsymphony-V automatically replicates our virtual machine images and their data in real-time to our other hot site. Moreover, our system performance has greatly improved. We stand behind our selection of SANsymphony-V because it performs as advertised.”

More Information
Extensive reference material and supporting videos of SANsymphony-V may be found at the SANsymphony-V launch page: http://www.datacore.com/Software/Products/SANsymphony-V.aspx.

DataCore Software's SANsymphony-V Garners Widespread Momentum

http://it.tmcnet.com/topics/it/articles/181706-datacore-softwares-sansymphony-v-garners-widespread-momentum.htm

SANsymphony-V has garnered widespread momentum and praise. It is designed to remove the storage-related barriers that prevent IT organizations from realizing the financial and operational goals of their virtualization initiatives.

SANsymphony-V is a version of DataCore’s SANsymphony storage virtualization software that is tuned specifically for virtual server and virtual desktop environments. It can also be used in physical environments, as well as a mix of virtual and physical.

TMCnet recently reported that the solution is capable of solving difficult storage-related challenges introduced by server and desktop virtualization, cloud computing and more general expansion, business continuity, and disaster recovery initiatives.

127 Million and Counting

That’s the number of person-hours lost each year to IT outages in North America and Europe, according to a new survey commissioned by CA Technologies. It’s an eye-catching number, equivalent to almost 64,000 people unemployed for a year, but there were other numbers in the survey that caught my attention.

For instance, a third of the organizations surveyed didn’t have a disaster-recovery policy in place, despite the fact that most them understood that downtime can damage their reputation, staff morale, and customer loyalty, and almost a fourth of the companies said that failure to recover data would be disastrous. The numbers also revealed that employee productivity suffered almost as much during data recovery as it did during the downtime itself.

Even more interesting was the fact that something like 95% of those lost hours come from small businesses with less than 500 employees. Of course, that’s mostly due to the fact that there are so many small businesses compared to larger firms, but I’m sure there’s also a “we can’t afford disaster recovery or high availability” mentality at work. How many of those lost hours could be reclaimed if businesses realized that in the era of virtualization, DR and HA no longer require specialized hardware and expensive duplication of resources?

Server virtualization combined with storage virtualization software makes it possible to use standard server hardware and disks—fancy arrays entirely optional—to make disaster recovery what it should always be—a last resort—by assuring business continuity and zero-downtime recovery with synchronous replication. It works if you have 200 TB of data spread across multiple metro clusters, and it works if you’re a small business dependent on a private cloud. Adding storage virtualization software to your virtualization playbook means you can put all your hardware to work, all the time, and stop worrying about being a downtime statistic.

Photo by Justin Marty

Videos from Citrix Synergy 2011; Latest Whitepaper and Webcast - The Storage Virtualization for Rock Stars Webcast Series Part 1: Hitting the Perfect Chord in Storage Efficiency

Check out the latest Webcast: The Storage Virtualization for Rock Stars Webcast Series Part 1: Hitting the Perfect Chord in Storage Efficiency
http://www.datacore.com/Software/Closer-Look/webcasts.aspx


Brian Madden at Citrix Synergy 2011: A video demo of DataCore
In this video from Citrix Synergy 2011 San Francisco, Datacore's Rob Griffin shows off SANsymphony-V and how it can be used to virtualize storage for VDI environments.
http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/morevideos/archive/2011/05/31/citrix-synergy-2011-a-video-demo-of-datacore.aspx


VMblog interviews Matt Zucker on DataCore at Citrix Synergy 2011
http://events.vmblog.com/video-interviews/interview-datacore
and at:
http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/05/26/citrix-synergy-2011-datacore.aspx


Sabrina Gelado Interview at the Citrix Synergy Both
http://www.citrix.com/tv/#videos/4035


DailyMotion creates a DataCore Video Playlist
http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x1kne2_datacorevideos_datacore-playlist-english/1#videoId=xhuyri


Are You Getting Storage Efficiency Backwards?
http://www.datacore.com/storage-virtualization-viewpoint-blog/11-05-31/Are_You_Getting_Storage_Efficiency_Backwards.aspx


SNSeurope DataCore Customer Video
http://www.snseurope.com/tv_full.php?id=322&title=DataCore-Software---Customer-Testimonial