New DataCore Storage Virtualization Software: SANsymphony-V

DataCore Software announced the availability of
SANsymphony-V, its next-generation
storage virtualization software solution that enables IT organizations
to eliminate storage-related barriers preventing them from realizing the
financial and operational goals of their virtualization initiatives.

The ‘Big Problem’ Stalling Desktop and Server
Virtualization Projects: Storage
"Unanticipated storage hardware investments and inefficient storage use
are often the most critical factors that bring server consolidation and
desktop virtualization projects to a screeching halt," said Richard
Villars, vice president of storage and IT executive strategies at IDC.
"Storage virtualization software solutions like DataCore’s SANsymphony-V
allow IT teams to maximize the use of existing storage assets while
also dramatically reducing administrative burdens. They frequently play
the key role in ensuring the success of organizations’ server and
desktop virtualization efforts."

Two years in development, SANsymphony-V software enables datacenters 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.

The new software helps to avoid the many performance problems caused by
I/O bottlenecks and the lost business suffered from downtime that make
customers very hesitant to virtualize crucial business applications,
such as mail and databases systems. SANsymphony-V uses adaptive caching
and performance boosting techniques perfected over the past 10 years to
absorb variable workloads while simultaneously removing storage
as a single point of failure and disruption. SANsymphony-V offers a
flexible, open software platform from which to provision, share,
reconfigure, migrate, replicate, expand, and upgrade storage without
slowdowns or downtime.

Bottom-line: DataCore uses software to reshape server and disk resources
already in use to meet the largely unpredictable and unforeseen
workloads that virtual machines and virtual desktops throw at newly
consolidated data centers – delivering compelling operational and
economic value.

The Business Advantage: Lower Costs, Reduced Risks,
Enduring Value and Recurring Payoff
For some enterprises, DataCore has meant the difference between the
success and failure in their virtualization projects. "When we first
received bids for our server virtualization project, we were shocked
that the accompanying costs to adequately centralize and protect our
disk farm would have eaten up most our budget," said Judy Pieper-Young,
manager, information systems, North American
Stainless. "DataCore literally
saved our project. Its software dramatically reduced the storage costs
and hassle factors by enabling us to use our existing resources. At the
same time, it eliminated the performance and availability risks that
switching to consolidated storage would have created for our newly
virtualized workloads."

North American Stainless is one of thousands of customers around the
world relying on DataCore to clear budgeting and technical roadblocks
that once jeopardized their virtualization plans. 
DataCore has enabled them to realize the business benefits that caused
them to migrate to a virtualized infrastructure in the first place.

"Virtualization is all about the advantages of software to cut costs and
insulate applications and users from disruptive changes and business
risks. That’s what DataCore does and why we are the logical third
dimension of a virtualization strategy," said George Teixeira, president
and CEO of DataCore Software. "Server and desktop virtualization make
up the first two dimensions, and we complete the picture by virtualizing
the storage assets. The business benefits of a stable software
infrastructure spanning multiple models and manufacturers across
generations of hardware are as compelling for servers and desktops as
they are for storage."

Enterprise-class Solution
Designed to Meet Mid-Market Practicalities
DataCore designed SANsymphony-V to meet the needs of midmarket end-users
and solution-providers, especially those familiar with Windows Server
administration eager to adapt their IT operations to accommodate the
many variables that server and desktop virtualization introduce.

While some vendors in the virtualization field recommend that customers
lock themselves into specific storage hardware configurations and
purpose-built appliances, SANsymphony-V frees customers from hardware
vendor lock-in by decoupling the virtual infrastructure from the
underlying disks. It also optimizes the I/O response obtained from
standard storage devices that would have otherwise needed to be
replaced. Then when they need to expand capacity, they can choose
the best deal at the time from a number of competitive suppliers rather
than be limited to one specific vendor’s hardware.

"With the launch of SANsymphony-V, DataCore has redesigned its software
for virtual server and desktop environments. However, DataCore’s key
benefits of extending the useful life of hardware, cutting hardware
costs and removing vendor lock-in are still intact, and apply to both
the physical and virtual world," said Carla Arend, program manager,
European infrastructure software research at IDC. "By driving down
storage cost and thus removing a major obstacle for adoption, DataCore
makes server and desktop virtualization affordable for the broader IT
community."

Sophistication without Complexity
In addition to reducing capital expenses, SANsymphony-V also takes a
bite out of operational costs by removing an amount of
complexity from the care and feeding of virtual IT infrastructures.

It does this by instituting best practices
through the use of automation
and guided workflows to ensure:

• Cost savings through software flexibility to meet change, portability and device independence.
• Fastest application response by auto-tuning ‘mega caches’ and selecting the best I/O paths.
• High-availability stretched across rooms or off-site, eliminating single
  points of failure and disruption through physical separation with full
  Auto-failover and recovery capabilities that insure a high level
  of business continuity.
• Optimum disk space utilization through infrastructure-wide thin provisioning and pooling.
• No downtime to repurpose and migrate systems and workloads with
  DataCore’s non-disruptive pass through capability that enables file
  systems and storage to be migrated.
• Reduced administrative complexity and risk through
  infrastructure-wide storage management, automation and wizard-like
  guided GUI.
• Multi-site and bi-directional recovery management of data and VMs across sites.
• Time saving recovery with CDP to rollback in time and recover workloads and VMs.

SANsymphony-V accelerates the transition between physical and
virtual machines by putting to full use the disk drives and data mounted
on the original systems. The set of features, all
device-independent, includes disk pooling, high-speed caching,
synchronous mirroring, asynchronous remote replication, non-disruptive
disk migrations, and low-impact online snapshots. SANsymphony-V also
includes a number of advances to better safeguard workloads and
avoid disruptions including integrated CDP,
multi-site recovery and high-speed and traffic compressing replication.

With SANsymphony-V, you can achieve:

• Lower risk to deploy your virtualization projects since a complete
  storage and process overhaul is not required; changes can be implemented
  incrementally, tried or undone selectively.
• Cost-effective Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery to safeguard your business.
• Infrastructure-wide administration and automation to increase your staff productivity.
• Greater savings from consolidation, repurposing and better utilization of your existing resources.
• Reduced complexity and greater control to manage growth and optimize your budgets.
• Enduring value from a software solution that lives beyond devices that ‘come and go.’

Pricing and Availability
SANsymphony-V software may be purchased through DataCore-authorized
solution providers across the globe. With the new release comes a simple
licensing and pricing structure based on instances of the software
(generally 2 copies for high-availability) and managed disk capacity.
Five different models and price points are available to meet needs from
large to small. Software licenses for a redundant,
high-availability configuration start under $10,000 U.S.D. including
annual 24×7 technical support.

In conjunction with the availability of SANsymphony-V, DataCore is
relaunching its company’s blog, The Virtual Viewpoint: Storage
Virtualization
Blog.