Arizona State University Selects DataCore to Manage Data Storage Growth

Ensures higher performance and availability

http://www.datamation.com/storage/managing-data-storage-growth-buyers-guide-1.html

Vincent Boragina, Manager System Administration, W. P. Carey School of Business IT Arizona State University, aimed to reach a 100% in server virtualization. Performance from IT assets was imperative. The advance in server virtualisation over the years, alongside desktop virtualization, led the school to dabble in high-end storage I/O needs with sequel databases and file servers (initially kept off the server virtualisation layer as the products were yet to mature). But when they started to virtualize these platforms, they faced a higher degree of latency. The need for I/O had advanced.

Boragina explains, “The issues with virtualization rests not so much with the storage capacity, as much as with how fast and the low latency it requires, to get the data on and off the disc. What is key, are the controllers and the fiber connectivity, etc., that run the disc, which impact the IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) and the latency of that disc. This is where complexity rises, as it is harder to measure latency. Performance was my key criteria.”

The school implemented DataCore’s SANsymphony-V and XIO storage, where XIO was the disk sub system and DataCore was the hypervisor for the storage and the storage I/O controllers. As a result, the school achieved a 50% reduction in latency time and a 25-30% increase in the overall I/O. With the redundancy and I/O requirements met, the school was able to virtualize any platform.

Importantly, to address issues like high performance, one need not overhaul the existing storage stack, added George Teixeira, CEO at DataCore. DataCore’s SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor, for instance, utilizes existing storage assets to boost performance with the adaptive caching. Its auto-tiering enables optimal use of SSDs/Flash, and high-availability for business continuity. “This precludes the investments of purchasing additional IT assets and pre-mature hardware obsolescence,” says Teixeira.

Business continuity was the added benefit for the school, as it came built-in within the DataCore solution. An added effect of this implementation: speedier backup due to a faster I/O.