DataCore Aims Major Software Enhancements at VMware Shared Storage Requirements

"VMware customers are demanding that the many storage-related interruptions they face while making metro-wide, virtual machine migration, failover and load balancing be eliminated. Solutions like those offered by DataCore are addressing these interruptions and are critical to making these tasks practical," said George Crump, senior analyst at Storage Switzerland.

Visitors to VMworld Europe 2009 will be among the first to learn how new versions of DataCore SANmelody(tm) and SANsymphony(tm) storage virtualization solutions materialize into SAN-wide performance boosts, radically simple, high-availability, and optimum disk utilization for VMware Virtual Infrastructure customers. DataCore's new lineup of VMware Ready Certified(tm) solutions will be showcased at Europe's largest virtualization community in Cannes, France.

DataCore SANmelody and SANsymphony Support 64-bit "Mega Caches" Boost SAN-wide Performance
Leading the list of new features in SANmelody 3.0 and SANsymphony 7.0 are native 64-bit controller software with support for mega cache capacities. "In large scale, consolidated data storage, cache is king," commented James Price, vice president channel and product marketing, DataCore Software. "DataCore's solutions will now support up to a terabyte (TB) of cache. They dwarf anything in the market and scale linearly with each node that you add to the fabric." The entire working set of a large number of virtual machines can now be kept in SAN-wide cache for unprecedented performance. Behind the cache, VMware customers can grow their storage pools from a few hundred gigabytes to multiple petabytes.

Radically Simple, High-Availability for Non-Stop Storage Virtual Infrastructure Needless to say, storage pools of such immensity are in constant flux. With this in mind, the new product enhancements are fully integrated into DataCore's radically simple, high availability solutions for VMware. Only DataCore allows maintenance, upgrades, expansion, and failures to take place throughout portions of the storage infrastructure without disrupting applications. "VMware customers are demanding that the many storage-related interruptions they face while making metro-wide, virtual machine migration, failover and load balancing be eliminated. Solutions like those offered by DataCore are addressing these interruptions and are critical to making these tasks practical," said George Crump, senior analyst at Storage Switzerland.

Full Use: Efficient Space Reclamation for Thinly Provisioned Storage Both SANmelody and SANsymphony offer the choice to thinly provision virtual disks rather than tie up physical capacity when LUNs are first created. This is particularly desirable with virtual machines that generally consume only a small fraction of the total volume assigned to them. In the new releases, previously allocated or thinly provisioned space will be automatically reclaimed in the background after applications or file systems no longer need it. With this functionality, the SAN returns unused capacity that may have been temporarily needed for some operations and can now further optimize resource utilization.

Windows Server 2008-based, Universal Storage Controllers
Configuring DataCore software on x86/X64 Windows servers transforms them into universal storage controllers. ESX servers and virtual machines (VMs) needing storage, connect to the DataCore controllers using iSCSI or Fibre Channel. All of the popular operating systems, including Windows Server 2003, 2008, Unix, Linux, NetWare and MacOs can take advantage of DataCore's SAN-wide storage virtualization features. In small configurations, the DataCore controller is hosted on a VM as a virtual appliance alongside application VMs. The SAN is completely virtual needing no external storage. Larger configurations dedicate physical servers to this storage virtualization role and typically include both internal disk drives and external arrays. The new SANmelody 3.0 and SANsymphony 7.0 releases have been re-architected to exploit the power and scalability of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 for either virtual or physical x86 and x64 platforms as universal storage controllers.

New Hypervisor Migration Support and Tighter Integration to VMware Virtual Center. DataCore's "Transporter" time saving migration facility is a new option in SANmelody 3.0 and SANsymphony 7.0. Transporter migrates disk images and workloads between different operating systems, hypervisors and storage subsystems - eliminating lengthy backups and restores due to complicated format conversions. In addition, a plug-in for VMware's Virtual Infrastructure Client is a no-charge option that allows administrators to non-disruptively provision, share, clone, replicate and expand virtual disks among physical servers and VMs.

What does server virtualization for free mean for storage virtualization?

Opinion, more server virtualization projects will feed storage virtualization.

Is server virtualization becoming a commodity?
The battle at the virtual server market is heating up and this is a question being asked. So what happened? Citrix is now making XenServer free since it has had a hard time making inroads against the giant VMware and Microsoft’s Hyper-V initiatives (see articles below).A benefit of the industry cost battle is that it helps fuel more virtualization projects…which obviously stresses the need for shared storage SANs and the high cost of the SAN (often the largest cost item - typically costing well over $75k). Implementing a SAN therefore becomes the major hurdle to virtualization deployments. This consolidation of servers results in 2 major pain points - it concentrates I/O performance (slows it down) and since all the applications are running on fewer servers it magnifies the impact of interruptions on business continuity -the 'All the eggs in one basket' impact: InformationWeek - Virtualization Driving SMB/SME Storage . This battle at the virtual server level bodes well for DataCore… since we overcome these critical pain points.Citrix XensServer is now Free (XenCenter, XenMotion, Resource Pools, etc. )Check out this overview: http://www.virtualization.info/2009/02/citrix-xenserver-is-now-free-xencenter.html

Case Story Feature: Volkswagen Unit Centralizes, Virtualizes Its Storage with DataCore SANmelody

DataCore's SANmelody lets the VW Financial Services unit provide storage from a central pool for all types of applications

http://www.byteandswitch.com/document.asp?doc_id=172103&WT.svl=news2_1

Despite a long series of ad campaigns in which it encouraged customers to "Think Small," Volkswagen in the U.K. was finding out that it needed to think big. The company's data storage requirements were growing exponentially. Email and database requirements were getting bigger all the time. Meanwhile, the company was moving to a blade server environment to keep its data center from being any bigger than it needed to be. The answer was to virtualize its storage.

High-Availability [Auto Failover & Auto Failback] - The DataCore advantage!

DataCore Storage Virtualization Enhances Server Virtualization

DataCore's application transparent high-availabilty and auto failover and failback capabilities slash downtime while protecting your critical business data.

DataCore's storage virtualization software insulates your virtual server environments from the adds, moves and changes in the physical disk configuration.

DataCore's ability to boost the performance of the disk subsystems helps overcome the sluggishness of concentrated I/O workloads.




DataCore helps overcome I/O bottlenecks...accelerates Storage I/O…
Fast Caching and Load Balancing

DataCore does high-availability better…Simple Fail-safe SAN data protection
Insulate Failures Transparent to Applications
Unique Automatic Failover and Failback
Priced right for Small and Mid-size Business
Full-featured HA SAN software [ New SAN Starter Software Packages ]
No-penalty upgradability and “future proofed” growth path

Virtualization Sector to Grow; ZDE Report Validates Storage Sector as Healthiest in IT

Gartner Report: Virtualization Sector to Grow 43 Percent in 2009

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Virtualization/Report-Virtualization-Sector-to-Grow-43-Percent-in-2009/
Despite the recession, global revenue from the sector will surpass $2.7 billion by the end of the year. The biggest market driver? Enterprises' need to reduce the total cost of ownership of its IT systems; green IT is a welcome byproduct.

ZDE Report Validates Storage Sector as Healthiest in IT

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/ZDE-Report-Validates-Storage-Sector-as-Healthiest-in-IT/

Eighty-nine percent of storage survey respondents report that they will either maintain or increase their storage purchasing in 2009. There is reason for most of the storage business to remain confident looking ahead to next year -- despite the free-falls in other sectors of the economy.

Ziff Davis Enterprise, publisher of eWEEK, reported survey results indicating that the data storage sector of IT generally remains unblemished by the economic downturn that is zapping most of the U.S. and world economy.

The survey and analysis for the new report, "Outlook for the 2009 Storage Market: An Online Survey of Ziff Davis Enterprise Storage Buyers," provided a validation of sorts for what eWEEK has been reporting in the last few months since the Wall Street and mortgage banking implosion caused the stock market to drop in precipitous fashion at the end of the third quarter.

View the results of the survey here. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/Slideshow-ZDE-Report-Validates-Storage-Sector-as-Healthiest-in-IT/

The Problem with snapshots

InformationWeek's Storage Blog: The Problem with Snapshots
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/02/the_problem_wit_1.html
...There are solutions. You can leverage a independent virtualization appliance like DataCore's http://www.datacore.com/ SANsymphony that will bring all your storage under one storage software umbrella...

Example User Configurations - Business Continuity

Please see details at: Example User Configurations - Business Continuity

DataCore is VMware Ready Certified™

DataCore's Storage Virtualization and Business Continuity Software Solutions are VMware Ready Certified™

DataCore and Parallels

MB Trading, Ulster Greene ARC, Bryant & Stratton College, and many others are enjoying unsurpassed uptime, on-demand workload distribution and tremendous cost savings since consolidating their IT environments with Parallels and DataCore.

"We run DataCore and Parallels in tandem and are extremely impressed by the combination," said Brenton M. Brown, Chief Information Officer, MB Trading. "They give our enterprise all the benefits that come by embracing total virtualization: fast and reliable performance, highly efficient storage and server utilization and the flexibility to provision both server and storage resources easily, when and where needed."

Common Use Case Scenarios - Challenges & Solutions
1. Large (greater than 100 Terabyte) configuration of Parallels Virtuozzo Containers and Virtual Desktops split across two sites.

2. Midsize (Less than 10 Terabyte) shared storage requirement for Parallels virtual environment.
Learn more: DataCore and Parallels Use Scenarios & Solutions