DataCore Northern Europe Partner Symposium focuses on Software-defined Storage market forces

DataCore gathered existing and prospective partners across Northern Europe to an interactive symposium held in Central London last week. Glenn Bullingham, NE Territory Director, DataCore and Christian Hagan, Vice President EMEA, alongside independent analysis provided by Chris M Evans, led a discussion and debate on ‘Market Forces on Software Defined Storage’.

Glenn commented, “From the outset, this year’s partner gathering represented the opportunity to be different. We want to dramatically change the way we interact with our partners, old and new, whilst imparting valuable market information that enhances business opportunities. Gone were the Powerpoint theatre style presentations delivered straight at partners, and in came 2015 interactive business planning and enablement, delivered in a lively discussion forum.”   

John Greenwood, Sales Director, NCE Group, appreciated the shift:- “At NCE, we have been DataCore gold partners for many years and sell DataCore alongside many other innovative storage technologies. It was therefore refreshing to be involved in an interactive symposium where we were invited as much to give input as to receive it. On the solution side, it’s exciting to hear how DataCore are going full thrust with their new Virtual SAN solution that allows us to combine virtual SANs with server attached storage.”

Stefan Nomark, Sales Manager, Svensk IT Funktion AB agreed:- “We travelled over from Sweden and we are pleased that we made the journey. We gained insights into future features of SANsymphony-V, together with powerful messaging with the server side, SAN side, any side, positioning that DataCore is now offering its partners.”

Christian Hagan, Vice President, EMEA, led the new channel positioning options behind DataCore’s “Data Anywhere” architecture, that allows end users to manage, virtualise and leverage server Flash and disk-based storage along with external storage arrays spanning different departments, data centres and remote customer locations.  He passionately informed partners that DataCore’s virtual SAN software can now totally eliminate the need to deal with traditional SAN costs and complexities and that the technology can accelerate customer performance to more than 50 million IOPS and scale to 32 petabytes of capacity across a cluster of 32 servers, concluding that it is now one of the most powerful and cost-effective systems available that partners can recommend.

Interested partners can download the free, fully featured Virtual SAN at http://datacore.com/products/features/virtual-san.

Article: http://www.it-director.com/channels/reseller/news_release.php?rel=44559 

DataCore and CommVault Partner to address Software-Defined Storage Momentum and Redefine Data Protection and Recovery

SANsymphony-™V is the first and only software-defined storage architecture to be fully integrated with CommVault’s Simpana® IntelliSnap® snapshot management technology. Through the combination of their advanced storage software, DataCore and CommVault are now able to deliver industry-leading data protection and recovery operations for today’s dynamic workloads to customers around the world.

CommVault's IntelliSnap technology ensures that IT organisations, including application, virtualisation and storage managers, can perform rapid, granular and consistent recovery of vital VMware and Microsoft Exchange, SQL, SharePoint and file data through federated search across indexed snapshots. CommVault continues to expand this growing ecosystem by enabling software and disk array vendors to integrate their snapshots with IntelliSnap technology through the IntelliSnap Connect Program.

“Today’s dynamic application workloads require a different type of thinking as data protection needs to be looked at from end to end and centered around mitigating the impact to the business,” said George Teixeira, president and CEO at DataCore. “As a result of our partnership with CommVault, organisations can now leverage the benefits of software-defined storage to accelerate data protection and recovery operations while making hardware maintenance, data migrations and hardware refreshes easier.”



With the integration of SANsymphony-V and Simpana IntelliSnap technology, organisations can:

Virtualise and pool access to any type of storage regardless of vendor model or brand, enabling companies to maximise their existing storage investments and boost application performance

Automate the creation of indexed, application-aware snapshot copies across enterprise-wide, multi-vendor storage environments

Simplify deployment and orchestrate recovery across all snapshots, backup and archive copies, while delivering storage specific reporting and managing replication

Minimise downtime with application-aware, point-in-time recovery of Microsoft Exchange Server, SharePoint, SQL, VMware, Hyper-V and other business critical applications

Reduce primary storage costs with automated snapshot backup to open systems, disk, tape or even the cloud for cost-effective retention

“CommVault is committed to working with partners who share a similar vision in helping increase efficiencies and reducing costs in today’s storage environments, while at the same time ensuring data protection and recovery remain top of mind,” said Jeff Echols, senior director of product and solutions marketing at CommVault. “As the software-defined storage market continues to grow, organisations will need data protection and recovery solutions in place that work across multiple-vendors in the same architecture – and we have achieved this through our partnership with DataCore.”

http://www.it-director.com/technology/storage/news_release.php?rel=44454

Thunderbird School Of Global Management Meets Key VMware, Metro-Clustering And IT Cost Challenges With DataCore Software-Defined Storage

“Due to the software-defined storage approach of DataCore’s SANsymphony-V, we are free to choose any hardware and no longer locked-in to a storage vendor, which gives us greater purchasing power," said Johan Reinalda, senior director network infrastructure and support services, Thunderbird School of Global Management. “This solution has allowed us to take a cost-effective approach when addressing our storage need. Additionally, functionality such as DataCore’s auto-tiering and self-tuning capabilities has led to performance increases in improving response times to VM within our VMware environment.”

No Dependence on Expensive Hardware – with Software-Defined Storage from DataCore

Thunderbird faced the IT challenge of being dependent on aging SAN controller infrastructure from NetApp, as well as various storage devices that were facing “end of life.” The school’s IT organization also sought to open up its purchasing options and free itself from this hardware and system vendor lock-in. Data storage growth rates were high and rising– so there was also the need to cost-effectively deal with the challenges of increasing growth and need for more capacity.

The institution was looking for a way to avoid the high cost of upgrading under its existing NetApp solution, which was deployed as a metro-cluster. Thunderbird wanted to protect its existing investment and therefore still has NetApp running, however, IT has been able to modernize its overall storage and has moved all mission-critical storage to a software-based DataCore SANsymphony-V storage virtualization platform. In fact, the DataCore implementation cost was only a fraction of what Thunderbird would have spent for the upgrade path from the incumbent vendor.

“We saved 60 percent on our storage upgrade – based on the quote from our original vendor, NetApp,” explained Reinalda. “We replaced all parts of the SAN – a total revamp, including disks, whereas the previous vendor option was to replace mostly the controllers. This was the overwhelming reason we went the DataCore route – that and no vendor lock-in for storage.”

Realizing the Benefits & Eliminating Downtime: Defining Storage Its Own Way at Thunderbird

In addition to a whopping 60 percent cost savings relative to the entrenched SAN vendor, the agility and flexibility the IT staff now has through DataCore – as far as scaling and expanding its infrastructure to best meet the organization’s needs – is now the norm at Thunderbird. For instance, system administrators can now add multi-vendor storage behind SANsymphony-V and have a single unified management interface.

The IT department is reporting a three to four times performance increase in response times of the storage for its virtual machines (VMs). Thunderbird is not using high-end storage behind SANsymphony-V, but they are using DataCore’s auto-tiering feature along with solid state disks (SSDs). The institution has embraced a high availability (HA) implementation in which SANsymphony-V is synchronously mirrored across two different data centers that are metro-clustered across the campus and as a result the IT team can perform upgrades without any downtime to its VMware “internal could” environment.

Reinalda emphasized that DataCore has ushered in a new day as far as making its storage infrastructure more resilient through storage that is software-defined. “The HA environment means better uptime. We have experienced no downtime in the six months we have been ‘live’ with SANsymphony-V,” he noted.

A complete case study concerning the DataCore deployment at Thunderbird School of Global Management is available here: http://datacore.com/testimonials/thunderbird.

DataCore momentum drives addition of new SVP of Global Strategy and the appointment a new Director Northern Europe; Both based in UK

DataCore Software Corporation announced expansion of their EMEA operation with a new appointment of SVP, global strategy, alongside an internal promotion of territory director, Northern Europe, both based in the UK. 

 Amanda Bedborough, becomes SVP, global strategy. She holds over 20 years' experience in senior executive IT positions, creating profitable growth for technology companies such asCorel, 3DFX Interactive, STB Systems. Formerly an EVP, global sales and marketing for Corel Corporation, she stands qualified to assist DataCore on its next stage of transitional growth, providing strategic advice on go-to-market strategy for customer acquisition and retention, today and in the future. This is a new global strategy position is based out of the UK and will focus initially on sales, marketing, channel development and operations planning and alignment.

Amanda commented: "I've worked with numerous technology companies at various stages of growth and evolution and the opportunity afforded at DataCore to execute a strategy and vision in today's era of software defined everything, is one of the most exciting roles I have been involved with."
Amanda's role commences immediately.

 Alongside this appointment, Christian Hagen, SVP, DataCore EMEA has announced that within the Northern Europe region, Glenn Bullingham has accepted an internal promotion to the role of Northern Europe territory director.

He has been with DataCore for six years and executing business and developing opportunities within the UK and Nordic regions. He has already assumed the reins from within the DataCore Northern Europe office in Green Park.


Both Amanda and Christian report directly to Steve Houck, COO, DataCore.
Steve comment: "Storage is undergoing a major transformation to 'software-defined' and as a result, we are fueling our expansion. Amanda and Christian bring the right combination of proven EMEA industry experience, growth management and sales development skills to take DataCore's business to the next level."

Further infrastructure growth continues in the engineering team's new facility in Croydon, London. The new R&D engineering group established in the UK is headed by DataCore's chief scientist, Nick Connolly, who has selectively been adding further developers to join the team expanding out from the existing facilities in Florida and Bulgaria.

Alongside the UK-focused expansions, DataCore invested in additional staff across Europe, especially in marketing and inside sales representatives to drive more new business engagements in Southern and Central Europe.

DataCore in the US also announced the opening of a Silicon Valley office alongside the Fort Lauderdale, FL, head office in order to strengthen market position with strategic alliances among companies in the software defined storage ecosystem.

Full article: http://www.storagenewsletter.com/rubriques/people/amanda-bedborough-svp-global-strategy-datacore/ 

Network Computing Technology Review: DataCore Virtual SAN and SANsymphony-V Software-defined Storage Solutions

Enterprise storage virtualisation offers many advantages over proprietary hardware solutions including cost effectiveness, no vendor lock-in and excellent scalability

DataCore's SANsymphony-V software is a prime example and its latest version (10) delivers new Virtual SAN capabilities and features that make storage virtualisation really compelling.

The new features focus sharply on the highest possible performance by using Flash and hard disk storage. Normally restricted to high-end enterprise disk arrays you can monitor disk activity, migrate hot data to higher performance storage and work across a range of vendor devices. Storage clustering is massively enhanced supporting up to 32 nodes and scaling to more than...

Read the full Networking Computing Product Review: 

SANsymphony-V and Virtual SAN from DataCore Software

Video Interview: Virtual SAN overview & demo by Ben Treiber, DataCore Software

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFLsIhcnBnw&list=UUaC9l9CYIEazFB5-pWfCNKw

CRN Slideshow: 35 Must-See Storage Offerings from VMworld 2014

DataCore Virtual SAN: Any Hypervisor, Any Storage 

Number 8: http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/virtualization/300073877/vmworld-2014-35-must-see-storage-offerings.htm/pgno/0/8  

Experience the power of the new Virtual SAN capabilities and further educate yourself on the benefits of software-defined storage. DataCore is providing free access to a non-production use Virtual SAN software license. The free SANsymphony-V10 Virtual SAN software is now available for download at: www.datacore.com/Free-Virtual-SAN.

Also, check out the new Virtual SAN design and deployment guide

VMblog catches up with DataCore about SANsymphony-V10 at VMworld 2014

VMblog stopped by DataCore's booth at VMworld 2014 to interview Paul Murphy and Ben Treiber to learn more about DataCore Software and get a demo of SANsymphony-V10.