http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid94_gci1373949_mem1,00.html?ShortReg=1&mboxConv=searchServerVirtualization_RegActivate_Submit&
With about 3 TB of virtualized server data and another 2 TB of email and database data that needed to be backed up daily, Montreal-based law firm Stikeman Elliott LLP faced a growing problem. Virtual storage area network backups were taking 24 to 48 hours, and not all of the data was getting backed up properly.
What was needed, said Marco Magini, a network system specialist for the firm, was an almost instantaneous backup system. The firm chose DataCore Software Corp.'s SANmelody software, a virtual storage area network (SAN) that's installed on one or two x86 servers. The servers become virtual storage controllers for large arrays of physical and virtual storage disks. Those disks are then moved to existing networks to send data to application servers, according to DataCore.
SANmelody solved several other IT challenges, including disaster recovery shortcomings and high-availability needs for virtualized servers, Magini said. "I was not looking for storage virtualization. We had plenty of storage to fill our needs." But once the application was installed, we uncovered a host of new unexpected capabilities, he said.
Stikeman Elliott started testing SANmelody in June 2008 and then deployed it into production last September. The 1,200-employee law firm is using the product in its Montreal headquarters and will roll it out to six other offices around the globe.
Magini said he's still finding new ways to get performance gains using SANmelody. "We started small," he said. "It's not that you don't have faith in the products, but when you are moving business-critical data, you want to be sure it can handle it."
SANmelody also allowed the IT department to make use of all types of unused legacy disks. When added to the system, SANmelody's management system views them as one massive disk for storage. That allowed Magini to reuse about 50 old 72 GB drives that were sitting on a shelf.
Mark Bowker, an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group in Milford, Mass., said it's not unusual for a planned server or storage virtualization project to affect other IT needs. "People typically begin projects for something as simple as server consolidation or resource utilization," Bowker said. "But they find other infrastructure is needed. Once they start rolling out virtualization, they find there are other benefits to be had," including disaster recovery and improved backup capabilities.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Happy Holidays from DataCore Software, Check out the latest PSP3 release for SANmelody 3.0 and SANsymphony 7.0
SANsymphony 7.0 PSP3 & SANmelody 3.0 PSP3 are released.For more info, please check the DataCore support site.
http://datacore.com/support/support_home.asp
For a Blogger's view of SANmelody 3.0 PSP3, check out the SANmelody Tune's site.
http://sanmelody.blogspot.com/2009/12/psp3-for-sanmelody-30-release.html
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Who Really Invented Thin Provisioning?
Who Really Invented Thin Provisioning?
http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=12803
http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=12803
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Northwest Wholesale Florists In Seattle Deploys DataCore Storage Virtualization Software And Microsoft Hyper-V
http://www.datastorageconnection.com/article.mvc/The-Sweet-Smell-Of-Server-And-Storage-0001
"What we have found with the DataCore and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 + Hyper-V combination is a virtual infrastructure that is redundant, reliable, flexible and expandable," stated Mary Toupin, Office Manager, Northwest Wholesale Florists. "Moreover, the redundant storage with DataCore complements the redundancy built into the VM system. We are very pleased with the way the system has performed."
"What we have found with the DataCore and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 + Hyper-V combination is a virtual infrastructure that is redundant, reliable, flexible and expandable," stated Mary Toupin, Office Manager, Northwest Wholesale Florists. "Moreover, the redundant storage with DataCore complements the redundancy built into the VM system. We are very pleased with the way the system has performed."
The original desire to upgrade its IT infrastructure was driven by the fact that NWF was moving to a new warehouse – and needed to do that while running operations from the existing warehouse. NWF looked to Moose Logic to design a new IT infrastructure system and provide a smooth transition. In this case, Moose Logic thought that there were a number of benefits in deploying Hyper-V, even before the release of Windows Server 2008 R2. However, after the R2 release of Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V has been infused with live migration functionality – which was not in Hyper-V prior to R2. "As a reseller, the combination of DataCore with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V gives our firm and this customer a lot of flexibility," commented Scott Gorcester, President, Moose Logic, a solutions provider and DataCore partner in the Pacific Northwest. "Using DataCore storage virtualization combined with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V in joint configurations is already proving to be a great combination for both resellers and users alike."
Re-purposing Existing Hardware and Deploying Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V
Knowing that there were two sound pieces of hardware that could be re-purposed, Moose Logic recommended a solution based on Windows Server 2008 R2 running Hyper-V. The firm built the customer two Hyper-V servers with System Center Virtual Machine Manager, running in a failover cluster. Coupled with the clustered pair of Hyper-V servers is a pair of DataCore SANmelody servers – one on an existing HP DL 380 G5 that was repurposed after adding new disk drives and more memory and the other on a new HP DL 380 G5 server to match the existing one. These G5 servers became the SAN nodes. This system went live at the customer's new location on October 1, 2009. Thirty-plus (30+) users benefit from the system daily.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Network Computing Feature: WHY A STORAGE BACKBONE BENEFITS FROM HARDWARE INDEPENDENCE WHEN BUILDING A STORAGE VIRTUALISATION STRATEGY.
http://networkcomputing.co.uk/articles/reviews.asp?a_id=253
From Network Computing Vol 18
Over the past 12 months as the credit crunch has deepened, organisations have sought alternatives from purchasing costly storage hardware. In turn, many have explored the adoption of software virtualisation to enable and optimise their storage. They have understood that software based Storage Area Networks (SAN) offer immediate advantages to the bottom line, invariably meaning that the IT Department can enable the project to progress, rather than be stopped at sign off. The Finance Manager has also seen that software based SANs enable the IT Manager to repurpose existing hardware, or to elect to buy lower cost hardware, as opposed to always chasing newer, high cost hardware, to get the required functionality.
The inherent beauty of storage virtualisation software is that it can bring high performance and high functionality along with hardware independence at lower investment and with lower operational costs. This approach can also be highly complementary to an IT Department's preferred hardware, giving an extra lease of life, or adding that extra functionality normally only available on highend disk arrays. So storage virtualisation, like server virtualisation, implies the use of software to overcome inherent hardware limitations, without regard to the make or model of the underlying storage devices; those who limit use of this powerful technology to a given hardware configuration, are doing the industry a disservice, setting users up for avoidable obsolescence. The central point of the debate lies not in hardware versus software, but in the hardware choices offered to run the storage virtualisation code, this year, next year, and the year after that.
Pick an appliance and your fate is sealed. The moment that appliance runs out of steam, be it processing power, I/O bandwidth or expansion slots, determines its end of life. The rate of change in the computer industry suggests that could be as short lived as 6 months. What would you say to anyone who told you that your server virtualisation license can only run on your current server? And that you have to buy a new license to move it to a bigger or faster server? Worse yet, that you have to buy them together from the same supplier, who only offers two models! And it only supports their "special" disks. Pretty ridiculous, but that is exactly what storage virtualisation appliance vendors promote under the header of being 'factory integrated'.
Does it matter whether you use Fibre Channel or iSCSI for a software based SAN? Both provide solutions for different needs today. Fibre Channel is very fast and easily outperforms iSCSI at the moment. It was designed and optimised for a SAN, and many companies have taken the jump and invested in Fibre Channel switches, Host Bus Adapters and storage, but it is costly compared to IP SANs where iSCSI uses NICs and switches that are commodity items, available at commodity prices. Often an enterprise that has already invested in Fibre Channel or needs the performance of Fibre Channel for its high transaction and high workload applications also uses iSCSI for lower performance applications.
Using the existing skills in an organisation of IP Networks rather than the 'dark magic' of Fibre Channel, means that human resources are more readily available and their costs are invariably lower. But as technology moves forward and iSCSI speeds increase from 10Gbit to 100Gbit and eventually to 1Tbit, the cost differences will be minor, let alone looking at FCoE, and other network technologies of the future.
Once again, only a truly independent software virtualisation solution can work with all these technologies today and future proof the options for tomorrow. Those who have adopted a hardware appliance have done so at their own peril, playing the future-guess game and possibly limiting their business.
From Network Computing Vol 18
Over the past 12 months as the credit crunch has deepened, organisations have sought alternatives from purchasing costly storage hardware. In turn, many have explored the adoption of software virtualisation to enable and optimise their storage. They have understood that software based Storage Area Networks (SAN) offer immediate advantages to the bottom line, invariably meaning that the IT Department can enable the project to progress, rather than be stopped at sign off. The Finance Manager has also seen that software based SANs enable the IT Manager to repurpose existing hardware, or to elect to buy lower cost hardware, as opposed to always chasing newer, high cost hardware, to get the required functionality.
The inherent beauty of storage virtualisation software is that it can bring high performance and high functionality along with hardware independence at lower investment and with lower operational costs. This approach can also be highly complementary to an IT Department's preferred hardware, giving an extra lease of life, or adding that extra functionality normally only available on highend disk arrays. So storage virtualisation, like server virtualisation, implies the use of software to overcome inherent hardware limitations, without regard to the make or model of the underlying storage devices; those who limit use of this powerful technology to a given hardware configuration, are doing the industry a disservice, setting users up for avoidable obsolescence. The central point of the debate lies not in hardware versus software, but in the hardware choices offered to run the storage virtualisation code, this year, next year, and the year after that.
Pick an appliance and your fate is sealed. The moment that appliance runs out of steam, be it processing power, I/O bandwidth or expansion slots, determines its end of life. The rate of change in the computer industry suggests that could be as short lived as 6 months. What would you say to anyone who told you that your server virtualisation license can only run on your current server? And that you have to buy a new license to move it to a bigger or faster server? Worse yet, that you have to buy them together from the same supplier, who only offers two models! And it only supports their "special" disks. Pretty ridiculous, but that is exactly what storage virtualisation appliance vendors promote under the header of being 'factory integrated'.
Does it matter whether you use Fibre Channel or iSCSI for a software based SAN? Both provide solutions for different needs today. Fibre Channel is very fast and easily outperforms iSCSI at the moment. It was designed and optimised for a SAN, and many companies have taken the jump and invested in Fibre Channel switches, Host Bus Adapters and storage, but it is costly compared to IP SANs where iSCSI uses NICs and switches that are commodity items, available at commodity prices. Often an enterprise that has already invested in Fibre Channel or needs the performance of Fibre Channel for its high transaction and high workload applications also uses iSCSI for lower performance applications.
Using the existing skills in an organisation of IP Networks rather than the 'dark magic' of Fibre Channel, means that human resources are more readily available and their costs are invariably lower. But as technology moves forward and iSCSI speeds increase from 10Gbit to 100Gbit and eventually to 1Tbit, the cost differences will be minor, let alone looking at FCoE, and other network technologies of the future.
Once again, only a truly independent software virtualisation solution can work with all these technologies today and future proof the options for tomorrow. Those who have adopted a hardware appliance have done so at their own peril, playing the future-guess game and possibly limiting their business.
DataCore performance testing with Sun 'Thumper' server
Recently had the chance to configure a SUN x4500 "Thumper" server with SANmelody 3.0.2 for connection to an VMware Vsphere4 environment. I was able to put together some basic benchmark numbers for this very interesting configuration which highlights the flexibility that DataCore software brings in designing storage solution to fit specific budget and storage requirements.
See the complete post and results at:
http://sanmelody.blogspot.com/2009_12_01_archive.html
See the complete post and results at:
http://sanmelody.blogspot.com/2009_12_01_archive.html
Monday, December 14, 2009
Host.net a BroadbandOne Company offers Cloud Computing Solution - Combines VMware, DataCore and Cisco - vServers, vStorage and vNetworks
Check out the new offerings from Host.net. Virtual Servers & Virtual Storage for Enterprise Scalability: http://www.host.net/Uploads/HostnetCloudInsertV10.pdf
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Barren County Schools Deploys DataCore Storage Virtualization: DataCore, Xiotech and VMware Combine
See the complete Barren County Schools case study here: http://www.datacore.com/BarrenCounty
Barren County Schools in Kentucky, has deployed its SANmelody storage virtualization solution to serve as the cornerstone of its entire virtual infrastructure. DataCore SANmelody works in tandem with Xiotech and VMware vSphere 4 in this total enterprise virtualization deployment. Currently, the virtual storage powered by DataCore serves a user community of 5,500 users – comprising 4,800 students and 700 faculty members.
“The biggest benefit for us was realizing a virtualized data infrastructure,” stated Steve Gumm, IT director, Barren County Schools. “Because we adopted storage virtualization, we now have a front-end piece whereby we can deploy any hardware behind it that we want. We can bring in an additional SAN if we want – whatever vendor we choose – and still use the DataCore product. We can just fold those SANs into our infrastructure and it would be seamless to the end user. Beyond this – with DataCore we were able to repurpose old equipment.”
The IT infrastructure that supports Barren County Schools went from 30 physical servers to four (4) physical servers running 30 VMs. Two DataCore SANmelody SANs each now run on DELL 2850 servers that became available from being decommissioned during the drive to virtualize. The data pool SANmelody is responsible for managing and keeping highly available is currently 16 TBs.
The team chose VMware vSphere on the virtual server-side. “We chose VMware because it was the only solution we saw that offered clustering,” noted Gumm. To support the virtual machines (VMs), the IT team looked at various SAN solutions on the market to be deployed as a backbone for its virtual infrastructure, supporting the VMware server virtualization software. According to Gumm, “We had looked into a couple of different SAN solutions. We already had an EMC SAN. But we also looked at the DELL EqualLogic solution – and did not like some of the features that were brought to the table, particularly in terms of failover.”
“What was particularly relevant to Barren County Schools was exactly what makes DataCore storage virtualization a ‘pure’ virtualization solution – and that is portability,” explained Craig Stein, systems architect, The Mirazon Group. “What I mean by that is that with SANmelody, users can deploy it as a front-end to any back-end hardware SAN that they choose – thereby virtualizing the data storage.
It was this flexibility that was most appealing to the IT team at Barren County Schools. Of equal importance was the fact that with DataCore, the customer owns the software. It does not get thrown out with the next generation of the hardware it is tied to – like some solutions. On the contrary, users can swap out newer hardware whenever they want. When decision time came, it was clear to Barren County’s IT team that this flexibility/portability characteristic gave them a vital piece of the virtualization puzzle.
In the end, DataCore SANmelody was paired with Xiotech hardware because it did bring “so much to the table,” according to Gumm. Among the features he highlights as “hard to pass up” are the ability to thin-provision clients, the ability to migrate data seamlessly to users, and the ability to do upgrades to the school system’s SAN infrastructure (the data structure) without truly having to do a forklift upgrade.
Complete Virtualization Environment Based on DataCore, Xiotech and VMware vSphere 4
“For all intents and purposes, we are 100% virtual,” commented Gumm. Barren County Schools has two data centers – one primary and one secondary. VMware vSphere is currently running on two, new PowerEdge servers. The Xiotech storage arrays are in both data center locations – the primary one and the “offsite,” or secondary, data center. The two locations contain a similar, mirrored, environment which includes two DELL vSphere servers and a Xiotech array which are attached to the SANmelody SAN server. To get to this, Barren County Schools migrated everything it had on an existing EMC SAN to the DataCore and Xiotech based SAN in a live environment using SANmelody to do so. The IT team mapped LUNs from the old SAN to the new SAN and while in production migrated all of the data to the new location.
“This is not one of those products where we were sold more than we bought,” concluded Gumm. “With DataCore SANmelody, we bought more than we were sold. We are getting far more out of it than I thought we would, which is a wonderful thing.”
Barren County Schools in Kentucky, has deployed its SANmelody storage virtualization solution to serve as the cornerstone of its entire virtual infrastructure. DataCore SANmelody works in tandem with Xiotech and VMware vSphere 4 in this total enterprise virtualization deployment. Currently, the virtual storage powered by DataCore serves a user community of 5,500 users – comprising 4,800 students and 700 faculty members.
“The biggest benefit for us was realizing a virtualized data infrastructure,” stated Steve Gumm, IT director, Barren County Schools. “Because we adopted storage virtualization, we now have a front-end piece whereby we can deploy any hardware behind it that we want. We can bring in an additional SAN if we want – whatever vendor we choose – and still use the DataCore product. We can just fold those SANs into our infrastructure and it would be seamless to the end user. Beyond this – with DataCore we were able to repurpose old equipment.”
The IT infrastructure that supports Barren County Schools went from 30 physical servers to four (4) physical servers running 30 VMs. Two DataCore SANmelody SANs each now run on DELL 2850 servers that became available from being decommissioned during the drive to virtualize. The data pool SANmelody is responsible for managing and keeping highly available is currently 16 TBs.
The team chose VMware vSphere on the virtual server-side. “We chose VMware because it was the only solution we saw that offered clustering,” noted Gumm. To support the virtual machines (VMs), the IT team looked at various SAN solutions on the market to be deployed as a backbone for its virtual infrastructure, supporting the VMware server virtualization software. According to Gumm, “We had looked into a couple of different SAN solutions. We already had an EMC SAN. But we also looked at the DELL EqualLogic solution – and did not like some of the features that were brought to the table, particularly in terms of failover.”
“What was particularly relevant to Barren County Schools was exactly what makes DataCore storage virtualization a ‘pure’ virtualization solution – and that is portability,” explained Craig Stein, systems architect, The Mirazon Group. “What I mean by that is that with SANmelody, users can deploy it as a front-end to any back-end hardware SAN that they choose – thereby virtualizing the data storage.
It was this flexibility that was most appealing to the IT team at Barren County Schools. Of equal importance was the fact that with DataCore, the customer owns the software. It does not get thrown out with the next generation of the hardware it is tied to – like some solutions. On the contrary, users can swap out newer hardware whenever they want. When decision time came, it was clear to Barren County’s IT team that this flexibility/portability characteristic gave them a vital piece of the virtualization puzzle.
In the end, DataCore SANmelody was paired with Xiotech hardware because it did bring “so much to the table,” according to Gumm. Among the features he highlights as “hard to pass up” are the ability to thin-provision clients, the ability to migrate data seamlessly to users, and the ability to do upgrades to the school system’s SAN infrastructure (the data structure) without truly having to do a forklift upgrade.
Complete Virtualization Environment Based on DataCore, Xiotech and VMware vSphere 4
“For all intents and purposes, we are 100% virtual,” commented Gumm. Barren County Schools has two data centers – one primary and one secondary. VMware vSphere is currently running on two, new PowerEdge servers. The Xiotech storage arrays are in both data center locations – the primary one and the “offsite,” or secondary, data center. The two locations contain a similar, mirrored, environment which includes two DELL vSphere servers and a Xiotech array which are attached to the SANmelody SAN server. To get to this, Barren County Schools migrated everything it had on an existing EMC SAN to the DataCore and Xiotech based SAN in a live environment using SANmelody to do so. The IT team mapped LUNs from the old SAN to the new SAN and while in production migrated all of the data to the new location.
“This is not one of those products where we were sold more than we bought,” concluded Gumm. “With DataCore SANmelody, we bought more than we were sold. We are getting far more out of it than I thought we would, which is a wonderful thing.”
DABCC features DataCore white papers
DABCC features DataCore white papers:
DataCore Storage Virtualization Software: Essential to Your Microsoft Virtualization Strategy Solution Overview:
http://www.dabcc.com/downloadfile.aspx?id=795
Other DataCore whitepapers: http://www.dabcc.com/downloads.aspx?c=42
DataCore Storage Virtualization Software: Essential to Your Microsoft Virtualization Strategy Solution Overview:
http://www.dabcc.com/downloadfile.aspx?id=795
Other DataCore whitepapers: http://www.dabcc.com/downloads.aspx?c=42
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Did DataCore Software Invent Thin Provisioning SAN Software?
The original post on the subject on DrunkenData: http://www.drunkendata.com/?p=1162
More recently:
Check out DataCore Software, the company that invented thin provisioning. Yes, ‘invented’, the first company to ship the network-wide thin provisioning capability, ala a SNIA defined Sparse Volume, back in 2002, well before 3Par, the company credited with the term “thin provisioning”. DataCore and 3Par were several years ahead of and have several years more experience in, thin provisioning, than the competition.
DataCore also provides space reclamation for any host O.S. type and does what 3Par, Compellent, NetApp, HDS and all the other hardware centric storage providers DON’T do, DataCore allows the end user to choose who’s disk and what type of disk technology they want to use, freeing them from the shackles of the storage silo model of having to fill all those expansion trays and drive slots from the given company, where the first time buyer sweetheart deal is long gone.
Test Drive it now!
Try thin provisioning with your disks or storage array, a 30 day trial download is available at: http://www.datacore.com/products/prod_SANmel_trynow_form.asp
Plus, given the fact it’s openly running on industry standard commodity hardware, it’s always at least a generation ahead of all the ’specialized’ array controller heads, that are also running on commodity hardware in reality. Add to that the flexibility that type of solution provides when it comes to adding interfaces (iSCSI, FC), increasing interface density, speed (the first 8Gb FC target on the market), cache size, etc., you can’t find a better overall value.
Dave Brown: http://www.cinetica.it/2009/10/14/start-thin-stay-thin-think-thin/
More recently:
Check out DataCore Software, the company that invented thin provisioning. Yes, ‘invented’, the first company to ship the network-wide thin provisioning capability, ala a SNIA defined Sparse Volume, back in 2002, well before 3Par, the company credited with the term “thin provisioning”. DataCore and 3Par were several years ahead of and have several years more experience in, thin provisioning, than the competition.
DataCore also provides space reclamation for any host O.S. type and does what 3Par, Compellent, NetApp, HDS and all the other hardware centric storage providers DON’T do, DataCore allows the end user to choose who’s disk and what type of disk technology they want to use, freeing them from the shackles of the storage silo model of having to fill all those expansion trays and drive slots from the given company, where the first time buyer sweetheart deal is long gone.
Test Drive it now!
Try thin provisioning with your disks or storage array, a 30 day trial download is available at: http://www.datacore.com/products/prod_SANmel_trynow_form.asp
Plus, given the fact it’s openly running on industry standard commodity hardware, it’s always at least a generation ahead of all the ’specialized’ array controller heads, that are also running on commodity hardware in reality. Add to that the flexibility that type of solution provides when it comes to adding interfaces (iSCSI, FC), increasing interface density, speed (the first 8Gb FC target on the market), cache size, etc., you can’t find a better overall value.
Dave Brown: http://www.cinetica.it/2009/10/14/start-thin-stay-thin-think-thin/
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