A Virtual Reality Check by Jon Toigo

http://www.drunkendata.com/?p=3299

Hate to say it, but I told you so. According to several surveys of businesses that have crossed my transom over the past few weeks, it would appear that a disproportionate number of server virtualization projects have stalled when they were less than 20% complete. The problem is simple and consistent: filled with the hype of the hypervisor vendors, planners leapt into the virtual abyss before they looked at the real costs associated with the strategy.

We were all told that all that this virtualization thing was going to cost was a basic hypervisor software license – a cost readily offset by reductions in the numbers of physical servers and their associated labor and energy expense. Then, it became evident that we needed the other licenses – those providing all of the cool features that were described in the brochure but not included on the Dell, HP or other server we bought. Then, we needed to get our staff trained as “vSphere Engineers” or something – an additional expense. Then, we discovered that consolidating all of those guests onto fewer servers required significant changes to our network cable infrastructure…and, ultimately, to our storage infrastructure.

Storage is the big part of the cost iceberg, submerged beneath the waterline of our virtualization vision, out of view and ready to sink our most unsinkable project plans. When the costs to reinvent storage became evident, especially the requirement to “forklift upgrade” our fibre channel fabrics, the captain called a “full stop” to our virtualization journey. In the aftermath, there was much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth as the reality of virtualization collided with the business case.

The story probably won’t stop here, of course. Most firms are hiring in the consultants and pouring over their budgets to determine what can be salvaged to realize the gains of server – and later desktop – virtualization without becoming the next James Cameron epic in the process.

One solution worth considering carefully comes in the form of storage virtualization technology recently announced by DataCore Software: a product by the unassuming name of SANsymphony-V. DataCore already enjoys a broad install base in Europe, where firms seemed to cotton to the ideas of abstracting software from array controllers as a cost-containment measure years before the idea caught on in the US market. SANsympony-V, however, is more than a new version of a DataCore product – it is a comprehensive reworking of both the underlying platform and the presentation layer that has succeeded in elevating the product from “nice-to-have” to “must-have” status, especially for companies confronting the big stall in their server and desktop virtualization projects.

The original case for storage virtualization remains just as valid and compelling as ever. SANsymphony-V enables you to pool your storage rigs then serve up volumes to any application that requires them. The interface for allocating volumes is much improved. Wizard-driven and resembling more than anything else the latest Microsoft Office software GUI, you discover your storage and servers, then simply drag volume icons onto servers (or guest machines) to establish the connection between them. Since all I/O is serviced from a cache memory layer, storage response is 3 to 5 times faster. Plus, I/O paths are remembered by SANsymphony-V and traffic is load-balanced across available connections automatically.

Plus, thin provisioning (a concept invented by DataCore) is provided to ease the burden of capacity management. Logical volumes reflect maximum available capacity (or any capacity you choose), but actual resources aren’t provided from the storage pool until they are needed. That’s across all disk in the pool, not just a stand of spindles attached to a proprietary array controller featuring thin provisioning software. Big difference that, both in terms of efficacy and cost.

Data protection services are also universal. If you want continuous data protection in the form of write logging, to protect against a data corruption event, simply tick a box next to the virtual volume you have allocated. You have a granular log of writes that you can rewind to before a corruption event has occurred to back out any bad data.

And, of course, DataCore continues to provide synchronous mirroring and snap shots to protect against localized equipment or facility disasters. The key difference is that their mirrors and snaps can be done amongst and between any hardware regardless of brand! For regional disasters, SANsymphony-V provides a robust asynchronous replication capability over distance – with full failover and fail back capabilities.

DataCore also rescues stalled virtualization projects by delivering the means to synchronously replicate guest machine data behind any host server, which solves the problem of hypervisor clustering that shares nothing…except storage. And you don’t need to wait for your storage vendor to getting around to supporting the new APIs from the hypervisor vendor, including vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). The primitives for offloading functions like replication are built in to the volumes your provision via SANsymphony-V.

Bottom line: the big problem stalling server virtualization projects is storage. The fix is SANsymphony-V. Check it out.

Virtual Strategy Magazine: Q&A with George Teixeira of DataCore Software

http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2011/01/31/qa-george-teixeira-datacore-software?page=0,0

"SANsymphony-V lets you do more with what you already have. Playing off of our musical theme – it orchestrates, tunes, and harmonizes your inflexible storage devices into a dynamic symphony."

VSM: How is DataCore solving this “Big Problem” in server and desktop virtualization projects?

GT: DataCore is all about storage virtualization, and virtualization is all about applying the advantages of software to cut costs and insulate applications and users from disruptive changes and business risks. Unless the storage assets are virtualized, no server or desktop virtualization project can be considered complete. The business benefits of a stable software infrastructure spanning multiple manufacturers and models across generations of hardware are as compelling for storage environments as they are for servers and desktops. In fact, we think every virtualization strategy must be three dimensional, considering and planning for each server, storage, and desktop virtualization.

The storage problem – its high cost, inadequate performance, inflexibility, vendor lock in – is and remains the “Big Problem” in server and desktop virtualization projects. DataCore solves that problem. We’ve built a software platform that’s open and “future-proof.” It adapts over time, endures over generations of hardware, and enables customers to virtualize their entire storage infrastructure. Customers can repurpose and use existing resources more efficiently and choose lower-cost alternatives when adding or purchasing new resources. They get a stronger, more flexible infrastructure with far greater performance, availability, and redundancy. DataCore is the critical storage virtualization software layer that solves the “Big Problem,” making server and desktop virtualization projects successful.

VSM: Tell us about your new product, SANsymphony-V.

GT: Today we’re launching our SANsymphony-V product, a next-generation storage virtualization software solution. SANsymphony-V eliminates the difficult and costly storage-related barriers to desktop and server customers’ virtualization initiatives. It allows customers 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 budget busting “rip and replace” approaches traditionally being proposed by storage hardware vendors to support desktop and server virtualization projects.

SANsymphony-V lets you do more with what you already have. Playing off of our musical theme – it orchestrates, tunes, and harmonizes your inflexible storage devices into a dynamic symphony. The “V”, by the way, in SANsymphony-V stands for virtualization.

VSM: What are the most compelling user benefits for SANsymphony-V?

GT: The most important benefit of a software-based approach to storage infrastructure is that it enables customers toget more from whatever storage they use, repurpose existing equipment, and extend its useful life. Therefore, SANsymphony-V helps businesses maximize ROI, minimize costs, and mitigate their risks. Just as importantly, it boosts productivity through its modern and intuitive storage management making it much easier to automate tasks and manage storage resources efficiently within any virtual infrastructure (server and/or desktop).

SANsymphony-V also includes a number of advances to better safeguard workloads and avoid disruptions, including integrated continuous data protection (CDP), multi-site recovery, and high-speed and traffic compressing replication.

VSM: What are the differentiating elements of the DataCore model/approach compared to other solutions on the market? For example, what are the differentiating factors in SANsymphony-V?

GT: In addition to what I have already stated, the main difference arises because DataCore is virtualization software for storage. Unlike vendors who claim to offer “virtualization” from within their storage arrays, DataCore permits users to leverage their existing storage that they have already deployed, while enhancing it with infrastructure-wide features that span many different storage devices from many different vendors. Most importantly, the virtual software infrastructure lives beyond the life of these storage devices which come and go over time.

No one would ever dream of throwing away Exchange or VMware because the server on which it was running became obsolete. Yet, this is what the storage industry has been forcing customers to do with their storage for years – junking their entire investment each time they need to replace, grow or upgrade their storage solutions. DataCore gives customers the power to reject this costly approach by offering both the shared storage required to implement virtual infrastructures and the comfort of knowing that their storage investments will continue to work for them for many years to come.

VSM: What are the future challenges in this market and how does DataCore intend to respond?

GT: For storage virtualization, I see three driving forces: the move to greater commoditization of hardware, the need to better consolidate the use of resources, and the need to drive down people costs. Every CIO I have visited recently is focused on the cost equation and getting higher productivity. DataCore makes commoditization practical, while providing performance and functionality. We allow multiple storage types and existing storage to be consolidated to maximize storage asset utilization. Our software greatly automates storage management and the administrative tasks associated with storing information across many systems.

Another key driver for storage virtualization is the increase in server and desktop virtualization products like those from VMware, Citrix, and Microsoft. They drive the need for a lot more storage. When you only had individual servers, you would use the attached captive disks installed in the server. With server virtualization products, you need virtual infrastructure storage, which can be provided to one server, many servers, or a farm of servers. A lot more capacity and flexibility is required, and there’s typically a lot more performance load on those virtualized servers. Because of DataCore’s scalability and performance, our storage virtualization may help foster an even faster rate of adoption of combined, large-scale server and storage virtualization infrastructures. It’s an interesting cycle; server virtualization drives more storage and performance requirements, thereby driving the need for powerful storage virtualization.

We’ve done a great job of virtualizing storage and companies like VMware and Microsoft have done a great job of virtualizing servers, but there’s a lot more to be gained by building an infrastructure that includes both. Many of our customers have already combined these two technologies, and I see this trend continuing. We work with our partners and vendors like VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix so that our combined virtual capabilities work well together within end-user environments.

Bright, Shiny Things for Storage Managers; The tools for building a strategic storage infrastructure are available to intelligent consumers.

Enterprise Systems - Jon Toigo
I tested SANsymphony-V recently and found several assertions by the vendor to be absolutely true. First, the allocation of storage to servers is simple: once storage is pooled, just drag the storage icon over to the relevant server icon in the GUI and you're basically done. A logical, thinly-provisioned disk is provided to the server and its apps or guest machines. Moreover, DataCore keeps track of the paths that are being used for data traversing between the storage and the server/apps and auto load-balances traffic to avoid latency.

I can testify to the fact that storage I/O experiences a 3-5x performance bump when SANsymphony-V is managing it, primarily because all reads and writes are cached -- so I/O works at memory speeds and not at the speed of spinning rust...

Bright, Shiny Things for Storage Managers

http://esj.com/Articles/2011/03/01/Bright-Shiny-Things-for-Storage-Managers.aspx?Page=4

When designing storage infrastructure architecture to achieve efficiency, performance, cost-containment, scalability, and ease of management, it is easy to become distracted by the latest announcements from brand name vendors -- the "bright, shiny things" phenomenon. Like clockwork, every six months vendors insist on rolling out a new feature that they hope will differentiate their commodity wares from their competitors'. It can be a real task to separate the important technological developments from those that cater to the "storage is just an accessory for my iPod" attitudes of certain segments of the marketplace at any given time.

New Stand-out Products

Certain things need to be done close to the disk to guarantee performance, resiliency, and bang for the buck. Most other "storage functions" need to be done off array -- delivered as shareable services across infrastructure broadly rather than being dedicated to a single stand of disk drives.

My friends over at Xiotech understand this, as do those at DataCore Software. Each company has recently announced new products with all the ruffles and flourishes of a "shiny new thing" -- but which stand out in my view as truly strategic.

DataCore’s Virtual Storage Controller

If I am not buying thin provisioning on the rig, where do I get it? DataCore Software's latest product, SANsymphony-V may provide an answer.

Last month, the Ft. Lauderdale storage virtualization software maker announced its new flagship product, which combines the best of its previous generation products into one easy-to-use "virtual storage controller" that works with Xiotech's (as well as everyone else's) storage hardware with hand-in-glove simplicity.

SANsymphony-V takes little knowledge of storage to deploy and configure. Wizards and extensive layman's language help, on a graphical user interface similar to the latest Microsoft Office products, discover storage assets and combine them effortlessly into managed pools. The software provides a platform for doing most of the things with capacity management, performance management, and data protection management that need to be done to maintain a storage infrastructure at business-ready service levels.

Only using SANsymphony-V, functionality such as thin provisioning (which the company invented, by the way) isn't isolated to a single hardware rig; it is a service extensible to all capacity in the infrastructure regardless of whose name is on the bezel of each rig. In effect, software value-add that need not be joined at the hip to proprietary array controllers is hosted instead on the storage virtualization layer created by SANsymphony-V, where it can be shared effectively and simply, and implemented readily for any application that needs it.

I tested SANsymphony-V recently and found several assertions by the vendor to be absolutely true. First, the allocation of storage to servers is simple: once storage is pooled, just drag the storage icon over to the relevant server icon in the GUI and you're basically done. A logical, thinly-provisioned disk is provided to the server and its apps or guest machines. Moreover, DataCore keeps track of the paths that are being used for data traversing between the storage and the server/apps and auto load-balances traffic to avoid latency.

I can testify to the fact that storage I/O experiences a 3-5x performance bump when SANsymphony-V is managing it, primarily because all reads and writes are cached -- so I/O works at memory speeds and not at the speed of spinning rust. The practical ramifications of this are several: for one, the overall speed of infrastructure is not determined by the slowest spindle. For another, older gear can be kept in service longer, even as newer and speedier disk is added to infrastructure, which helps to bend the storage cost curve. Best of all, brand doesn't matter. You can build a better infrastructure with the combination of Xiotech ISE and DataCore Software than you can with most of the available brand-name rigs from the standpoint of resiliency, manageability, value-add service sharing, performance, and labor.

I/O caching and pooling also mean that functions such as data replication (even across different brand rigs), tiering, and other functions are a snap to implement. You want continuous data protection to safeguard a volume against a data corruption event? Easy -- just tick the check box on that volume as presented by SANsymphony-V and every write made to the volume is logged, enabling you to fail back to an earlier time before the corruption event occurred. Want high availability? Easy -- just mirror data synchronously between two or more volumes on different rigs in the same room or the same metro area network. Concerned about CNN-style disasters? Asynchronous replication and snapshotting -- even between heterogeneous hardware -- is readily provided.

Bottom line: the tools for building a strategic storage infrastructure are available to intelligent consumers. Fortunately for all of us, intelligence is becoming the new meme as cost-containment initiatives get into full swing.
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Enterprise Systems Video: DataCore Software Benchmarks VDI in the Real World (Interview with Ziya Aral)
http://esj.com/articles/2011/02/22/video-datacore-software-benchmarks.aspx

DataCore Software takes a very different approach to benchmarking VDI.

DataCore SANsymphony-V Release Wins Strong Support from Key Virtualization and Disk Storage Alliance Partners Worldwide

http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/02/07/datacore-sansymphony-v-release-wins-strong-support-from-key-virtualization-and-disk-storage-alliance-partners-worldwide.aspx

“By using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center, DataCore SANsymphony-V will help customers reduce the cost of storage while delivering improved performance and availability,” said Mike Schutz, senior director of product management for the Server and Cloud division at Microsoft Corp.

“Through our partnership with DataCore, VMware is able to deliver the benefits of simple, complementary and highly available storage solutions optimized to work with the VMware platform,” said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. “The new SANsymphony-V helps expand the benefits of VMware solutions including improved storage hardware flexibility, additional disk space utilization and high availability.”

Data centers are now on the move to embrace total virtual infrastructures to add flexibility, reduce costs and increase the productivity of their desktop, server and storage investments. According to Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group, "For server virtualization endeavors to truly succeed, IT shops will have to match those capabilities with total storage virtualization - or else it's all for naught. Autonomous storage virtualization that sits a layer above the physical storage is the way it inevitably has to be."

“End users are telling us that storage ‘surprises’ can be a major irritant with – or even impediment to – desktop and server virtualization projects,” states Mark Peters, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “The surprises are twofold – firstly operational, whereby the virtualized computing layer is precluded from working well by the lack of an equally flexible storage infrastructure; and secondly, financial, as the first issue precludes the economic advantages of server virtualization from being achieved, and the subsequent ‘quick-fix’ storage acquisitions drive costs up and over budget. DataCore addresses the operational issues and hence delivers pleasing economic value. Its software intelligently repurposes existing resources in order to meet the unpredictable and unforeseen workloads that virtual machines and desktops generate.”

DataCore SANsymphony-V Release Wins Strong Support
http://tech-blogs.co.uk/business-software/datacore-sansymphony-v-release-wins-strong-support-telecom-reseller/

“Storage virtualization has become an essential component of enterprise virtualization,” says Carlos M. Carreras, vice president of alliances and business development, DataCore Software . “As our customers look at strategies to combine the components of a successful … “By using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center, DataCore SANsymphony-V will help customers reduce the cost of storage while delivering improved performance and availability.”

DataCore SANsymphony-V release wins strong support
http://www.snseurope.com/news_full.php?id=17170

Storage virtualization software combined with a robust partner ecosystem satisfies operational and financial objectives of fully virtualized data centers.

SANsymphony-V Product Reviews

Network Computing released a new product review on DataCore SANsymphony-V software, you can read it at:

SANsymphony-V Network Computing Review

The enormous growth of network storage in the enterprise is forcing businesses to consider new ways of managing their storage capacity so as to keep within budget.

Storage virtualization is a significant consideration and the latest SANsymphony-V software from DataCore offers a viable solution, offering a keen focus on data availability, disaster recovery and performance.

Loading SANsymphony-V onto two servers with multiple network ports brings synchronous mirroring into play, delivering always-on data access. Real time I/O replication runs across the two nodes, so, if one fails, the virtual disks remain available to all of the attached hosts. Connect your hosts over MPIO (multi-path I/O) links and you have created complete end-to-end redundancy.

For lab testing, we deployed a pair of dual Xeon X5560 servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 and had SANsymphony-V installed on them in a matter of minutes.

The new management console is very impressive. It allows you to view all of your DataCore servers, attached physical storage, virtual resources and hosts from a single location.

The 'Getting Started' page makes light work of initial configuration by providing step-by step guides for all functions.

Read the full article at: SANsymphony-V Network Computing Review


Also please check out all the new product reviews on SANsymphony-V, at:
DataCore Product Reviews

Internet Research Group’s White Paper on Storage Virtualization Software: The Cornerstone for Affordable Business Continuity

http://www.datacore.com/Libraries/Document_Library/IRG_brief_Storage_Virtualization_and_Business_Continuity_Final.sflb.ashx

Find out what other Analysts are saying about DataCore on our Analyst and Opinions Page

http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/What-Others-are-Saying/Analyst-Reports.aspx

So here’s the question raised by VMware’s demonstration that is disrupting the storage market. If business continuity can be supplied as part of a software virtualization platform (with all the convenience and flexibility that implies), what future do hardware-specific storage virtualization solutions have? After all, just as server virtualization eliminates the need for specialized server hardware, shouldn’t storage virtualization eliminate the need for specialized storage hardware or appliances? In fact, doesn’t the fundamental logic of virtualization eventually demand a hardware-agnostic storage management solution that can itself run in a virtual machine in one of the general-purpose x86 servers that make up today’s ideal data center?

IRG brief Storage Virtualization and Business Continuity

Cloud Infrastructures For MSPs

http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/229219171/os33-avazpour-combine-to-automate-cloud-infrastructures-for-msps.htm;jsessionid=JV282X7ggXxBY9kz5aGh1Q**.ecappj03

OS33, a provider of cloud portal management technology to MSPs, unveiled a new Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform it says will increase the performance and flexibility and simplify the management of cloud infrastructures.

The OS33 Grid provides a full range of integrated cloud resources to MSPs who might otherwise have to work with multiple cloud service providers, said Jim Avazpour, president and CEO of Avazpour Networking Services and president of OS33's Infrastructure Division.

As an example of OS33's attempt to provide a consistent SLA to its MSP customers, Avazpour said that the OS33 Grid integrates storage technologies from two long-term partners.

The first is CommVault, which provides a complete data backup solution suitable for companies ranging from small businesses to large enterprises facing regulatory concerns. "For companies that require high availability, CommVault can provide data snapshots on an hourly basis," he said.

For tiered storage to the cloud, OS33 works with DataCore Software. DataCore's storage virtualization technology can tie multiple SANs together for high availability and performance, and automate the migration of data to the cloud, he said.

MSPs looking to implement disaster recovery can use the CommVault and DataCore offerings to replicate backups to offsite data centers, including OS33 data centers in Secaucus, N.J., Overland Park, Kansas, and Santa Clara, Calif.

"We can provide cold, warm, and hot disaster recovery, depending on the customer's budget," he said.

Virtualization Review and Jon Toigo Webcast on DataCore SANsymphony-V, February 22, 2011 at 11:30am EST

DataCore Software announced that it has partnered with Virtualization Review to host a live webcast entitled “Overcome the ‘Big Problem’ Stalling Server and Desktop Virtualization Projects.” This webcast, which takes place on February 22 at 11:30am Eastern Standard Time, will be recorded and it will address how IT organizations can eliminate the storage-related barriers preventing them from realizing the financial and operational goals of their virtualization initiatives.

Included will be a brief product demonstration introducing key functionality inherent to SANsymphony-V, a new generation of storage virtualization software designed to simplify and automate the three most important storage functions – Capacity Management, Performance Management, and Data Protection Management – needed to create a dynamic storage infrastructure for the virtual world.

Who: Moderator – Jon Toigo, CEO Toigo Partners International, Chairman Data Management Institute. Storage expert Jon Toigo is a columnist for Enterprise Systems and contributing writer for Virtualization Review. He is a consultant, blogger and author of 15 books on business technology, disaster recovery and data storage.

Presenter #1 – Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing, DataCore Software.

Presenter #2 – George Teixeira, president and CEO, DataCore Software.

What: Webcast: “Overcome the ‘Big Problem’ Stalling Server and Desktop Virtualization Projects”
Unanticipated storage hardware investments and inefficient storage use are often the most critical factors that bring server consolidation and desktop virtualization projects to a standstill. During this webcast, attendees will learn:

•The root, storage-related causes behind the “big problem” stalling virtualization projects;
•A proven, cost-effective way to overcome the "big problem" using storage virtualization software;
•Contrasts between software-based approach and expensive “rip and replace” hardware proposals;
•How simple it is to manage a virtual shared storage infrastructure in concert with your virtual servers and virtual desktops using the newest DataCore™ product, SANsymphony™-V; and
•How data centers can use existing equipment and conventional storage devices to achieve the robust and responsive shared storage environment necessary to support highly dynamic virtual IT environments.

When: Tuesday, February 22nd at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (duration: 90 minutes)

Where: Register for the webcast at:
http://virtualizationreview.com/webcasts/2011/01/datacore-overcome-the-big-problem-stalling-server.aspx?tc=page0

The Register: DataCore Rewrites SANsymphony Score

Better caching and protection

By Chris Mellor: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/31/datacore_sansymphony_v_v8/

Storage virtualisation software supplier DataCore has revved its SANsymphony product to provide faster access to virtualised and pooled block-access storage for its mid-market customers.

The product sits in an X86 server between block storage-accessing servers and storage arrays and presents the storage in the arrays – plus storage on the server it is running on if you wish – as a single pool of virtualised storage. It is, in effect, an external storage area network (SAN) controller, in the same technological vein as IBM's SAN Volume Controller.

Version 7 was announced in April 2009 and was a 64-bit version running on Windows Server. It introduced the idea of mega caches, the use of its own server's memory as a cache for the SAN, with up to 1TB of the stuff. There was a high-availability (HA) feature so that SAN components could be upgraded and replaced without taking the SAN offline. It also supported thin provisioning to avoid wasteful allocation of storage capacity before it was actually needed to store written data.

Version 8 of SANsymphony-V adds auto-tuning of the mega cache feature, to improve cache efficiency and get data to servers faster. DataCore says it also offers infrastructure-wide thin provisioning and pooling. The pooling is now organised so that the underlying disk drives can be aggregated into virtual pools with specific performance and cost profiles, and these pools used by the accessing servers. There is, as yet, no mention of tiering pools with data moved between them as it becomes hot or cool in activity terms.

There is SAN-wide centralised management and both automated and guided workflows to make an administrator's job easier. DataCore has also added Continuous Data Protection (CDP) to enable storage admins to rollback in time and recover workloads and virtual machines.

Carla Arend, program manager for European infrastructure software research at IDC, said: "DataCore has redesigned its software for virtual server and desktop environments ... [It] makes server and desktop virtualisation affordable for the broader IT community."

DataCore has some 6,000 customers and hopes that the increased interest in datacentre virtualisation issues will work to its advantage as mid-market customers see the advantages of virtualising across SAN storage arrays. They can have a consistent level of functionality across the disparate feature sets of the virtualised arrays, says the company.

The DataCore pitch is that it can effectively upgrade legacy storage arrays to function as fast-access, thinly-provisioned and continually protected storage resources for virtualised servers and desktops. LSI has recently exited the SAN virtualisation software field, killing off its Storage Virtualisation Manager. This leaves DataCore facing less competition.

DataCore says there are five different SANsymphony-V product models and price points, based on software instances and managed disk capacity. Software licences for a fully redundant, high-availability configuration start under $10,000 and include annual 24x7 technical support.

Twitter: DataCore rewrites SANsymphony score: Better caching and protection. Storage virtualization software supplier DataCor… http://reg.cx/1MyT

Storage Virtualization Software eliminates storage barriers. 

http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/Storage-Virtualization-Software-eliminates-storage-barriers-590834

February 3, 2011 - With SANsymphony(TM)-V, datacenters can use existing equipment and conventional storage devices to achieve responsive shared storage environment necessary to support dynamic virtual IT environments. Program uses adaptive caching and performance boosting techniques to absorb variable workloads while simultaneously removing storage as single point of failure. Open software platform lets users provision, share, reconfigure, migrate, replicate, expand, and upgrade storage without slowdowns or downtime.

SNS UK: New generation of storage virtualization software

SANsymphony-V delivers the critical “third dimension” to virtualisation: software to cost-effectively shape the shared storage infrastructure required by virtual IT environments.

http://www.sns-uk.co.uk/news_full.php?id=17101

SearchStorage.co.UK: DataCore launches SANsymphony-V storage virtualization software

DataCore upgrades its storage virtualization software with SANsymphony-V, which includes a new management interface, faster asynchronous replication and built-in CDP.

http://searchstorage.techtarget.co.uk/topics/0,295493,sid181_tax308659,00.html

IT Director: DataCore Announces New Generation of Storage Virtualisation Software: SANsymphony-V

http://www.it-director.com/channels/isv/news_release.php?rel=22818

UK's The Channel Register: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/01/31/datacore_sansymphony_v_v8/

DataCore Announces New Generation of Storage Virtualization Software that Solves the “Big Problem” Stalling Today’s Server and Desktop Virtualization Projects

SANsymphony-V delivers the critical “third dimension” to virtualization: software to cost-effectively shape the shared storage infrastructure required by virtual IT environments

Read the full product announcement at: http://tinyurl.com/6j65pyz
Check out the new material on the SANsymphony-V launch page: http://www.datacore.com/SANsymphony-V.

Read the New Enterprise Strategy Group White Paper:
DataCore's SANsymphony-V Storage Virtualization Software

Music to the Ears of Server Virtualization Users Stalled by Storage Challenges http://www.datacore.com/Libraries/Document_Library/ESG_Datacore_SANsymphony-V_Whitepaper.sflb.ashx

DataCore Software today announced the availability of SANsymphony™-V, the 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 cost-effectively 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 wildly 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.

“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.”

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.”


More Information

Extensive reference material and supporting videos of SANsymphony-V may be found at the SANsymphony-V launch page: http://www.datacore.com/SANsymphony-V.

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

The blog can be found on the company’s website at: http://www.datacore.com/storage-virtualization-viewpoint-blog.aspx.

It’s time to solve the “Big Problem” stalling today’s server and desktop virtualization projects

Deployment and operation of a successful virtualization strategy depends on several core components: the right people, the right solution, a strong grip on infrastructure investment, and a clear strategy.

Nonetheless, whether it’s a straightforward data consolidation project or a larger virtualization-based migration and integration exercise, most organizations must overcome potential issues relating to flaws in the core components that, if left unaddressed, will hinder a successful project. This is a big challenge for companies, something that research organizations such as Gartner have attested to, but not an insurmountable one.

First and foremost, it’s critical that the IT department keeps on top of managing and controlling storage assets. Poor use of available storage assets, guerrilla purchasing and deployment of storage at a workgroup level, and disconnected storage silos are among the biggest problems. And all result in strains on IT spending, significant storage management overhead, and inherent inefficiency.

However, solving this does not have to entail a widespread rip-and-replace of existing hardware. Far from it, in fact. Intelligent use of software enables you to consolidate your storage estate virtually, rather than just physically, allowing the business to access unused capacity across the resource, rather than trapping it in local silos and workgroups, saving money and improving utilization in one fell swoop.

This is the Software Advantage we focus on. Software-based storage virtualization infrastructure delivers transparency and flexibility, and enables businesses to tackle current and future needs while at the same time bypassing the physical constraints of a hardware-centric storage solution that can hinder workflow.

Consolidating storage is not just a space utilization issue; it is also one of cost saving. A consolidated environment serving virtual and physical machine storage requirements can, if done properly, deliver a range of operational efficiencies from data and back-up management improvements to maximizing availability, all of which reduce the need for costly physical intervention to solve storage resource issues.

When done well, and without the need for a massive investment in new hardware to fit the strategy, storage virtualization software can deliver significant cost savings in the short and long term, enabling you to actually achieve your projected return on investment on your overall virtualization initiative, while also unlocking the asset value of data and reducing the risk of data loss or data management errors.

This Software Advantage in storage virtualization is at the heart of what we do at DataCore. With that in mind, today marks the launch of DataCore’s SANsymphony-V, the newest version of our storage virtualization software. SANsymphony-V delivers the Software Advantage by freeing customers from the high-costs, inadequate performance, inflexibility, and vendor lock in inherent in a hardware-centric approach to storage. It is an open software platform that “future proofs” your business against changing storage requirements caused by server and desktop virtualization initiatives, and enables customers to repurpose existing resources more efficiently and choose lower-cost alternatives when adding new resources. In short, SANsymphony-V solves today’s Big Problem stalling desktop and server virtualization projects: the storage problem.

Brain Madden Blogs: DataCore Software releases a "nirvana" VDI storage solution and Benchmark Paper

DataCore releases a "nirvana" VDI storage solution. Full local virtual storage that's really cheap!
by Brian Madden

Back in September, I wrote an article describing a product that I wanted that didn't exist: a local "virtual" storage option for VDI. Basically I described why I didn't like SANs for VDI and that I thought it would be cool if there was some sort of software that could virtualize access to the local hard drives that are in a VDI host server. I was thinking a solution like that could create the best of both worlds: fast flexible storage without the overhead costs of a SAN.

In a new white paper from DataCore (direct PDF link), they claim that their SANmelody software running on a VDI host does fulfill my fantasy storage requirements. And they claim they can do it with full multi-server redundancy with a cost of less than $70 per user. (That's $70 for everything.. the VM host, the SANmelody software, the disks you need for storage... everything!)...

Frequent readers know that I'm not one to republish vendor papers. But in this case, the DataCore paper (by Ziya Aral & Jonathan Ely) is actually really, really good. They take a no-BS look at VDI storage, and they validate their architecture with standard tools like Login Consultants' VSI benchmark.

From the paper: Previous publications have reported on configurations which use thousands of virtual desktops to defray the cost of these controllers. Reading between the lines, it becomes immediately apparent that per-virtual desktop hardware costs rise very sharply as such configurations are scaled downward. Yet, it is precisely these smaller VDI configurations which are the more important from most practical standpoints. On the other hand, this configuration may also be scaled upwards, in a linear fashion, to thousands of virtual desktops, thus eliminating distended configurations created by the search for artificial "sweet spots" at which costs are optimized...

Read the full Blog post at: http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2011/01/25/datacore-releases-a-quot-nirvana-quot-vdi-storage-solution-full-local-virtual-storage-that-s-really-cheap.aspx

DataCore Software Publishes Breakthrough VDI Benchmark Results and Virtualization Paper: 'Benchmarking a Scalable and Highly Available Architecture for Virtual Desktops'

The benchmark results represent a greater than ten-fold (10x) decrease in the per-Desktop costs of SAN-based, high-availability virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs).

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/DataCore-Software-Publishes-prnews-2900175007.html?x=0&.v=1

"I loved this paper! Every other ROI discussion you see is based on the economic benefit a company derives by deploying thousands of virtual desktops - but in the real world, we start with ten, then a hundred, etc.," states Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "They will never show you that cost because it's huge! I appreciate the folks at DataCore shining the light on this and showing that you don't have to be able to spend a zillion dollars before you can see a return on a VDI initiative."

Read the full paper here: Benchmarking a Scalable and Highly Available Architecture for Virtual Desktops – http://tinyurl.com/4hlrh46
 
See supporting videos here: The Future of Desktop Virtualization – http://tinyurl.com/276yaot

SANsymphony 7.0 Selected as 2010 Products of the Year finalists for Storage Management

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid5_gci1525938,00.html

Many will look back on 2010 as the year of big storage acquisitions, but the wheeling and dealing was only part of the story. Data storage vendors turned out a slew of ingenious enterprise data storage products to address some of the key issues users have been grappling with in their storage shops.

From nearly 200 entries, the judges of Storage magazine's and SearchStorage.com's 2010 Products of the Year awards have selected and announced their finalists.

Storage management tools: 2010 Products of the Year finalists

Jan 2011 | Storage magazine and SearchStorage.com Contributors

Here are the eight finalists in the storage management tools category in Storage magazine's and SearchStorage.com's 2010 Products of the Year competition. The category covers storage resource management (SRM) and SAN management software, performance monitoring, file systems, volume management, virtualization software and security software. Finalists are listed below. 

DataCore Software Corp. SANsymphony 7.0
DataCore SANsymphony 7.0 storage virtualization software adds non-stop high availability (HA) to let users do maintenance, upgrades and expansion, and address system failures without disrupting applications. Also new are support for Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), "advanced site recovery' (ASR) to enable IT shops to fail over physical and virtual servers to multiple remote and branch offices, and efficient space reclamation for thinly provisioned storage.

Balesio AG FILEminimizer Server
balesio FILEminimizer Server

Gluster Inc. GlusterFS 3.1
GlusterFS 3.1

Nasuni Corp. Nasuni Filer 2.0
Nasuni Filer 2.0

Nexenta Systems Inc. NexentaStor 3.0
NexentaStor 3.0

Quantum Corp. StorNext 4.0
StorNext 4.0

Quest Software Inc. vFoglight Storage 1.0
vFoglight Storage 1.0

Rackspace Hosting Inc. Cloud Files
Rackspace Hosting Cloud Files

The Next Big Industry Push is VDI

Check out the latest post form Jon Toigo at: http://www.drunkendata.com/?p=3264

…One of the problems I have been detecting in the literature is the same issue we saw in server virtualization:  the gotchas of hidden cost.  In addition to software and operating system licensing fee structures, the industry will need to sort out the enabling software for virtualizing desktops themselves.  But the really big cost is — you guessed it — storage.

I have read with amusement and disdain the papers by leading storage hardware vendors stating that, from a storage cost perspective, you can stand up 5000 desktop images on their array for a fraction of what a physical desktop costs.  They usually tout $100 desktops versus $400 physical PCs.  Big cost savings there, right?
Not really.  The reason why they use 5000 virtual PCs to achieve their groundbreaking cost reductions is that it is the only way they can amortize their box of disk drives and value add software.  NOBODY IS GOING TO VIRTUALIZE 5000 DESKTOPS!!!

Sorry for shouting.  I guess there are some companies out there with that many PCs.  However, the truth is that VDI will likely advance incrementally — tens or maybe a couple of hundred PCs at a time.  This is especially true at the outset of the trend, with early adopters and experimenters. 

So, the truth of most of these claims that 5000 desktop images can be stored for a quarter of the price of an equal number of physical PCs is quite self serving — and, more importantly, falls apart in the real world. 

The question shouldn’t be how many VDIs can I stack up to amortize my storage investment, it should be, how much cost can I take out of distributed desktops if I virtualize a few dozen?  The benchmarks of the EMCs, NetApps, et al never go there.

But DataCore Software does.  In case you missed their announcement today, here’s the news — at least the preliminary bits that were released today.

My friends at DataCore have just completed what I regard as the first meaningful benchmark on the cost of desktop virtualization from a storage hosting perspective.  I like what Ziya, George, Bettye and the gang have done — a lot!  In fact, I thought it was important enough to fly down there with a camera and shoot a video interview on the subject.  They have posted the videos to their site but I will be placing them at the C-4 Summit in Cyberspace by end of week.

Here is an extract of what I just wrote about it for Storage Magazine in the Netherlands…

Late 2010 saw a succession of “proof of concept” papers coming from the storage brand name vendors touting cost models for VDI that were a fraction of the acquisition price of physical PCs.  One three-letter vendor boasted that a 5000 PC environment could be effectively hosted on its storage array for roughly $50 US per box. 

Once you get past the wow factor, however, you quickly realize that the storage vendor’s benchmark is rather self-serving.  The benchmark ignores the cost of desktop OS and application software licensing, hypervisor licensing, server hardware, network enhancements, and storage cabling requirements to focus narrowly on the cost per VDI using the vendor’s storage gear.  Moreover, a business will need to stack up a full 5000 virtual PCs in order to amortize the cost of the storage rig and achieve the cost-per-virtual-desktop advanced by the vendor.

Truth be told, virtually no one is going to virtualize 5000 desktops all at once – not even the large insurance companies or government research labs that actually have desktops in those numbers.  It is more likely that companies will tread cautiously when pursuing a desktop virtualization strategy, virtualizing only a handful of machines at a time so that the real cost and efficacy of the strategy can be clarified.  Until that happens, buying a huge EMC, IBM, HDS, etc. storage rig to support 5000 virtual PCs at sub-$100 each will not return its investment.  In fact, companies pursuing this course will likely find out the hard way that the easiest path to doubling or tripling desktop computing costs is to virtualize their desktops on expensive infrastructure.
I wish everyone would read CTO Ziya Aral of DataCore Software’s wonderful benchmark on VDI and storage.  His goals were not to amortize a specific storage rig (DataCore sells storage virtualization that works just as well with Joe’s JBODs as it does with VMAX or USP).  He wanted simply to understand the capacity and performance requirements for desktop virtualization – especially in the 100 to 500 virtual machine range that will be much more common in the real world.

DataCore Software demonstrated pretty persuasively, and without trying terribly hard, that you could stand up that range of VDIs on a virtualized storage platform for about $35 per desktop.  They also discovered that the low cost could be maintained as you grew infrastructure using storage and servers configured as part of a star topology – stars later serving as a building block for scaling.  That price included all of the redundancy and failover capabilities touted as “enterprise class” hosting by the brand name storage rig vendors – leveraging only the secret sauce of DataCore read/writable snap shots created from virtualizing underlying storage.

There were many non-intuitively-obvious findings in DataCore’s research that I will only summarize here.  For one, a Microsoft Windows 7 machine will boot in less than 198K of memory – so there is no real advantage to throwing a ton of RAM at the system.  For another, most desktops require very little physical storage:  so, when you begin doing VDI, you need to stop thinking as though you are deploying a physical PC with parameters dictated by “boundary conditions” (i.e., configuring according to what the most data intensive application or user might require in terms of storage capacity).

Bottom line:  DataCore’s benchmark proves that it doesn’t require an overpriced “enterprise class” storage rig to virtualize desktops in a cost-effective way.  All that it really requires is common sense and storage virtualization software, preferably from DataCore Software, which [will shortly release a new and revamped version of its flagship storage virtualization wares].

We are off to a great start in 2011.  Maybe DataCore’s research will cajole the hardware guys to get real about their cost estimation around VDI.  For now, a sub-$35 price tag is pretty compelling.

Interesting Technologies that could come of age in 2011. Storage Virtualization Software #1

http://www.storagetopics.com/2011/01/interesting-technologies-that-could.html

In my last blog I noted that the promise of the New Year encourages a flurry of predictions each trying to foretell next year’s technology winners and losers. Just as with New Year’s resolutions, I have tried to avoid engaging in this end of year ritual despite my last blog that may have created a contrary impression...

To me interesting predictions are those that reach beyond the safety of conservatism. Being bullish is risky but what is the point of predicting the obvious. So in the spirit of sticking myself out there on the proverbial limb my selection of technologies to watch in 2011 are; Storage Virtualization Software, Cloud Storage Gateways and Autonomic Software Architectures.

#1. Storage Virtualization Software: Not what is traditionally thought of as storage virtualization; for example HP’s EVA or a 3Par array. Storage virtualization software is a hardware independent software product, designed to deliver storage virtualization that replicates the many advantages VMware, Microsoft’s HyperV and Citrix et al has delivered to the server world.

How? By looking at what is traditionally consider to be platform based controller functions and physical storage virtualization as a portable software program that is abstracted from the physical layer and hence hardware independent. Very interesting concept and one that I anticipate will generate some interesting responses from the traditional storage vendors.

Companies to watch; DataCore, a 10+ year old company that could have a break out year in 2011, and for those interested in content addressable storage, Caringo.

The Software Advantage for Storage Virtualization: DataCore Software Sets the Stage for Virtualization Leadership in 2011

http://vmblog.com/archive/2010/12/29/the-software-advantage-for-storage-virtualization-datacore-software-sets-the-stage-for-virtualization-leadership-in-2011.aspx

DataCore Software, an early pioneer and now a leading provider of software-based virtualization solutions empowering storage, today highlighted what it considers points of emphasis for 2011 in terms of furthering the promise of virtualization.

The promise of virtualization will be further realized this year. Software-based storage virtualization will take its rightful place by making storage anonymous within virtual infrastructures. Equally important, a number of trends, strategic drivers and software architectures will emerge to make a new level of flexibility and scale both practical and cost-effective to achieve. The most significant driver will be the simple realization that only a software-based infrastructure can truly deliver the necessary advantages to make virtualization and Clouds a reality because software can abstract itself from device specific limitations, provide portability across platforms, and endure beyond the life of underlying hardware platforms that come and go over time.

Compelling Benefits: The "Software Advantage" and Anonymous Storage
According to DataCore Chairman and Co-founder Ziya Aral, "The entire storage virtualization angle was real simple - abstract yourself from the hardware. DataCore was founded on the belief that storage controllers in general and storage virtualization in particular were essentially ‘software programs.' For us, virtualization was driven by a very simple need to make a portable software program to do disk storage and run it on any platform."

This sentiment is both echoed and further emphasized by DataCore's President, CEO and Co-founder George Teixeira, "From a business standpoint, the total cost of ownership and the payback on investment of a pure ‘software infrastructure,' where you pay once for intelligent software to manage, protect and get more from your storage assets - as they come and go from generation to generation and brand to brand - is a value proposition that is as compelling as it is inevitable."

Bottom-line: A software based storage virtualization infrastructure can live within the same abstraction level as virtual servers and virtual desktops and bring along the same type of benefits that we have seen from these movements in regards to making storage hardware brands largely irrelevant - or anonymous - to users and applications, therefore simplifying management, removing storage task complexity, speeding up response and provisioning times and increasing overall utilization and flexibility.

The "software advantage" becomes more obvious when you consider the many scenarios it works in and the many shapes it takes and will take in the future. Because DataCore software is portable, it can run on a virtual machine (VM) or on a multitude of physical servers. It not only virtualizes and manages storage, but can coexist along with the server hypervisor in the virtualization layer, providing many possibilities to solve real world and real budget challenges. Hardware simply can't do that.

Software-based storage virtualization has been lauded as a "game changer" in a number of reports, including: InformationWeek's ‘Storage Anonymous' Cover Story.

DataCore's Future Directions for Storage Virtualization

"The whole idea of DataCore and our vision was that if you could move the software program from the constraints and boundaries of the physical platforms and take it to a modern programming environment, then it would be possible to do with software what had been done manually to that point - that's storage virtualization," explains Aral.

Virtual desktops (vDesktops) are an excellent example that highlights the need for a new model for storage. The major challenge for vDesktops is that SANs are often implemented with large and costly storage controllers and complex external storage networks. While these have the advantage of achieving reasonable scalability, they introduce a very large threshold cost to virtual desktop implementations. To overcome this high capital cost burden, hardware vendors typically tout the economics of deploying several thousand vDesktops. The real problem in this case is not in scaling up to "thousands" of vDesktops but in scaling them down to practical configurations. It barely needs mentioning that this must occur without radically spiking costs at the low end and also without forgoing the SAN feature set which assures portability, availability, and data redundancy. Otherwise, the very benefits of vDesktops are compromised.

DataCore has done extensive benchmarking to understand the economics of vDesktops and has been able to configure high-availability configurations supporting a few hundred instead of "thousands" of vDesktops, and at a cost per desktop of less than one tenth of what was previously reported. In addition, new topologies allow the scaling of such configurations to "thousands" if that is what is required. Based on these initial findings, DataCore will make a significant impact on removing storage costs as a primary barrier to virtual desktop deployments. DataCore will be posting a series of Virtual Desktops Benchmark Reports in 2011.

Virtual desktops have one element in common with the other major computing movement of our day: cloud computing. Both technologies promise to deploy very large numbers of "machines" of the same class. This creates the opportunity to present one additional level of virtualization and to "divide and conquer" the problem which is otherwise daunting for its scale. What if, instead of attempting to manage hundreds or thousands of virtual machines discretely, one could divide them into arbitrary groups or sub-units and then manage a far smaller number of sub-units? This will also be the future direction of our work, impacting not only vDesktops and cloud computing but also the organization of storage itself.

Stay tuned to DataCore in 2011 for more details.

Learn More - Supporting Materials

Ziya Aral discusses: The DataCore Product Vision, Virtual Desktops and Benchmark Findings.

George Teixeira shares his "Perspectives on the Shifting Economies of Storage Virtualization Software, Private Clouds and Virtual Desktops" - DataCore CEO Perspectives: 2011.

DataCore Software: 2011 Perspectives on the Shifting Economies of Storage Virtualization Software, Private Clouds and Virtual Desktops

"The business return on investment of a pure ‘software infrastructure,' where you pay once for intelligent software to manage, protect and get more from your storage assets - as they come and go from generation to generation and brand to brand - is a value proposition that is as compelling as it is inevitable."- George Teixeira, President and CEO, DataCore Software
 
Read the top 5 predictions for 2011 from DataCore Software at: http://vmblog.com/archive/2010/12/16/datacore-2011-perspectives-on-the-shifting-economies-of-storage-virtualization-software-private-clouds-and-virtual-desktops.aspx

Software based Storage Virtualization is key to Cloud Performance

Current projects emphasize the growing need for high performance and highly available storage for the cloud. Case in point – DataCore Software recently implemented its SANsymphony™ software at Waterstons. This major IT service provider offers cloud hosting services from a purpose-built Tier 3 data center in the North of England. Based on Dell storage hardware, VMware and DataCore's SANsymphony software – configured in a redundant configuration, it offers all the high availability and resilience that Waterstons' high-end cloud hosting service requires. Through SANsymphony's built-in agility and thin-provisioning software, Waterstons' clients can access storage “on-the-fly” from the VMware server farm. Andrew Kershaw, Technical Director at Waterstons, explains, "Through our cloud-based service, we are able to offer new and innovative ways of supporting clients and solving their business and technology problems. With the VMware and DataCore combination, we can respond to demands extremely quickly and on a very flexible basis, which often is simply not the case with traditional infrastructure."

Host.net, one of the largest hosting services in the USA, delivers private cloud computing services for companies ranging from SMEs to large enterprises, utilizing a true software-based approach to attain the greatest flexibility and to deliver 100% uptime. "We chose VMware, DataCore and Cisco in the core design of our vPDC platform because each vendor delivers the very best virtualization component in their respective areas of competence," says Jeffrey Slapp, Vice President of Virtualization Services for Host.net. He states that many companies have signed on as new customers because of the competitive advantages they have achieved with this combination of technologies and architecture.

Top 10 Ways to Trim Storage Costs

http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/management/article.php/3908676/Top-10-Ways-to-Trim-Storage-Costs.htm

Software Virtualization

There are many ways to virtualize storage. In some cases, the vendor suggests throwing away old hardware to buy a brand new virtualization array. A cheaper way is to leave legacy disk in place and incorporate it into a shared storage pool using software-based virtualization.
“With software-based storage virtualization, you can take full advantage of disk resources already in place before you spend any money on additional capacity,” said Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing, DataCore Software.

DataCore Software Powers The Virtualization Infrastructure For Ahtna Government Services – Encompassing DataCore Storage Virtualization, VMware For Servers, And Citrix XenDesktops

"Our goal is to build a non-stop datacenter and with DataCore we have a high-speed, synchronously mirrored, storage infrastructure now deployed at Ahtna along with VMware. Together they work in tandem to ensure a new level of uptime for our business."
http://www.datastorageconnection.com/article.mvc/DataCore-Software-Powers-The-Virtualization-0001

"We have been a Citrix shop for some time and we recently decided to do our DataCore and our VMware virtualization implementations at the same time," states Chris Whitaker, Information Technology Manager, Ahtna Government Services. "The virtualization technologies all work hand-in-hand and they have drastically made our lives easier. The flexibility we have with DataCore powering our IT environment speaks for itself. With DataCore, we can apply storage to any server, any operating system, any piece of hardware, or to any desktop – when and where it is needed."