VMworld 2012: DataCore Software Certified VMware Ready; VAAI, SRM, vCenter Plug-ins Further Integrates Storage Hypervisor with VMware Cloud Infrastructures and Software-defined Datacentres

SANsymphony-V Certified VMware Ready™


Today at VMworld® 2012, DataCore Software announced that SANsymphony™-V is now certified as VMware Ready™ and easily integrates with VMware’s portfolio of solutions, allowing data center and private cloud operators to gain the most from their virtual infrastructure investments. At VMworld 2012, DataCore will showcase SANsymphony™-V 9.0 “The Storage Hypervisor for the Cloud,” which offers customers many far-reaching innovations essential to managing enterprise-wide storage and to quickly deploying agile, scalable cloud storage infrastructures. Attendees are invited to stop by booth #2307 to learn how customers are using VMware and DataCore to optimize their Tier One application workloads and to take advantage of DataCore’s offer for free not-for-resale (NFR) software to qualified VMware certified experts and professionals.

“Our partnership with DataCore helps customers virtualize and optimize their storage infrastructure so it delivers the performance, scalability, flexibility and redundancy required to support their server and desktop virtualization initiatives,” said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. “This capability enables enterprises to realize the full benefits of their private cloud deployments.”DataCore’s SANsymphony-V is VMware Ready and offers seamless integration with:

VMware vSphere® 5

VMware vSphere® Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI)

VMware vCenter™ Server

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager™ (SRM)

DataCore Software is a longstanding member of VMware’s Technology Alliance Partner Program. Thousands of VMware vSphere and SANsymphony-V users are already realizing dynamic, virtualized and private cloud environments powered by the hardware of their choice. DataCore’s SANsymphony-V 9.0 offers VMware software users enhanced flexibility and powerful automation benefits, delivering exceptional value to their private cloud and data center environments. As enterprises and data center operators continue to upgrade and modernize their infrastructure, they will require such solutions to maximize ROI. Advanced features of the DataCore Storage Hypervisor include automated tiering, thin provisioning and high availability, enabling administrators to gain full value and more effective usage of their costly solid state drive (SSD) deployments.

Empowering VMware SRM and VAAI Benefits Across Heterogeneous Storage Arrays
VMware VAAI storage-based hardware acceleration lowers CPU and memory consumption, enables faster deployment, supports VMware vMotion® for storage tasks and disk creation, as well as higher VM consolidation ratios; however, these capabilities only work with VAAI-compliant storage arrays. DataCore’s SANsymphony-V extends VAAI hardware acceleration benefits across heterogeneous storage arrays, regardless of whether those arrays have native VAAI support or the VMFS volumes span the same brand of array enclosure.

The Storage Hypervisor sits in front of all types of storage vendor arrays and devices, presenting DataCore-powered virtual disks/LUNs to VMware vSphere. The software masks the physical characteristics of the underlying storage devices. Bottom-line, it does not matter which physical storage array is sitting on the back-end.

The DataCore storage hypervisor empowers VMware administrators to:

Replicate LUNs or motion virtual disks across different storage arrays

Facilitate the implementation of powerful capabilities like VMware's Site Recovery Manager (SRM) on top of those virtualized and replicated disks

Enable VAAI operations across platforms

Simplify migrations and VMware Storage vMotion

Free up the VMkernel for other activities by offloading work to the storage hypervisor

VMware vCenter™ Server Plug-In Makes it Easy for VMware vSphere Admins to Eliminate Storage Issues
DataCore has made available a VMware vCenter Server plug-in that integrates enterprise-wide storage hypervisor management with VMware vCenter Server to empower VMware administrators with the ability to easily manage virtual machines (VMs) and storage from a single console. Enterprises can now control and schedule key SANsymphony-V storage virtualization services, taking snapshots and tasks directly from their VMware vCenter Server Management Platform. The DataCore VMware vCenter Server management plug-in software is available immediately for download to all SANsymphony-V customers.

For more information, please download the DataCore vCenter Plug-in datasheet. Link: http://pages.datacore.com/SANsymphony-VforVMwarevCenter.html

DataCore SANsymphony-V: “The Storage Hypervisor for the Cloud”
“The march to the cloud continues as enterprises, data centers and service providers increasingly explore the business and technical benefits of fully virtualized environments,” commented Carlos M. Carreras, vice president of alliances and business development, DataCore Software. “Storage is often the overlooked component as organizations move to virtualize servers, desktops and top tier application delivery and take full advantage of their private clouds. Not addressing this component can result in performance bottlenecks and deployment hurdles, and will not make the best use of upgrade investments. DataCore’s Storage Hypervisor is empowering administrators to avoid these pitfalls when migrating to the cloud.”

Visit the Booth and Test Drive the Storage HypervisorAt VMworld 2012
DataCore will provide access to free test drives to any interested attendees and offer free license keys of its SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor to VMware vExperts, VMware Certified Design Experts (VCDX), VMware Certified Professionals (VCP) and VMware Certified Instructors (VCI). The NFR license keys – available for non-production uses such as course development, training, lab testing and demonstration purposes – are intended to support virtualization consultants, instructors and architects involved in efforts aimed at managing and fully leveraging storage assets.

VMworld 2012: DataCore Storage Hypervisor Makes Mission-Critical Tier 1 Business Applications Run Up to 5X Faster Virtualized

Enterprise Strategy Group Lab Validation report confirmed benchmark tests with Microsoft SQL Server and Exchange workloads improved workload performance by nearly 5x. As a proof point for performance and cost efficiency, the SANsymphony-V empowered systems were able to support more than 1,500 users as compared to only 322 users on the non-virtualized physical servers.

Today at VMware's VMworld 2012, DataCore Software showcased how SANsymphony™-V 9.0, the newest release of its flagship product, boosts the speed, throughput and availability of virtualized, I/O intensive tier 1 applications like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange. Customers report 2x to 5x faster performance and achieve better than 99.999% uptime after virtualizing their existing storage with SANsymphony-V.

"DataCore fundamentally changes the economics of performance, cost-effectively enabling application owners to virtualize their tier 1 applications as they transform into private clouds," said George Teixeira, CEO and President of DataCore Software. "The DataCore storage hypervisor works hand in hand with VMware to intelligently and economically harness the full power of server caches, solid state disks (SSDs) and existing storage assets so that application owners no longer need to 'rip and replace' storage infrastructures and pay much higher costs to meet their performance and uptime objectives."

Eliminating the I/O Bottlenecks in Virtualized Data Centers
Performance decreases and downtime caused by I/O bottlenecks are the number one reason why enterprises are holding back from virtualizing their I/O intensive tier 1 applications. SANsymphony-V overcomes this by using device-independent adaptive caching and performance boosting techniques to absorb wildly variable workloads so that applications run faster virtualized.

"DataCore's impact on performance was dramatic in every metric we measured. Even more impressive is how SANsymphony-V simplifies management and how easily it can make data center storage more resilient. With a single mouse click disk capacity is served and all the normal error-prone steps to configure, tune and set best paths for high availability get done auto-magically," said Tony Palmer, senior engineer and analyst with ESG Lab. For more on Palmer's observations, watch: http://storagetv.org/datacore/testvideo.php?vidkey=222.

In the ESG Lab Validation report, the benchmark tests confirmed that Microsoft SQL Server and Exchange workloads were able to improve their performance by nearly 5x. As a proof point for performance and cost efficiency, the SANsymphony-V empowered systems were able to support more than 1,500 users as compared to only 322 users on the non-virtualized physical servers.

Harnessing Flash Storage Cost Effectively for Even Greater Application PerformanceTo further increase tier 1 application responsiveness, companies often spend excessively on flash memory-based SSDs. SANsymphony-V's auto-tiering feature optimizes the use of these premium-priced resources alongside more modestly priced, higher capacity disk drives. SANsymphony-V constantly monitors I/O behavior and intelligently auto-selects between server memory caches, flash storage and traditional disk resources in real-time to ensure that the most suitable class or tier of storage device is assigned to each workload based on priorities and urgency. The result is unmatched tier 1 application performance and cost efficiency.

Ensuring Fast and Always Available Applications Without a Major Storage Investment
Once I/O intensive tier 1 applications are virtualized, SANsymphony-V ensures high availability, eliminating single points of failure and disruption through application-transparent physical separation stretched across rooms or off-site with full auto-recovery capabilities for the highest levels of business continuity. SANsymphony-V effectively virtualizes whatever storage is on a user's floor, whether direct-attached or SAN-connected, to achieve the robust and responsive shared storage environment necessary to support highly dynamic virtual IT environments.

Customers Around the World Are Increasing the Performance, Improving the Availability and Reducing the Storage Costs of Their Virtualized Tier 1 Applications
"Since we started using DataCore on the storage side to virtualize our tier 1 applications, we got back on track with our virtualization project," said Pablo Palma, information technology manager at The MLS™, a US real estate advertising and marketing service company. "Before that, I/O bottlenecks and the pesky outages were hitting us at every turn, especially with web servers, file servers and SQL Server. Now we can handle about 300% more transactions than before -- all on the same hardware. Moreover our disk pool is completely redundant, giving us the opportunity to upgrade and expand without taking users down."

"We have virtualized Exchange, SQL Server and SharePoint on all of our DataCore/VMware projects and consistently the performance of these applications has been outstanding," said Jim Krantz, president of Krantz Secure Technologies, a full service professional IT services company based in the US. "The performance has been so good that we have not even considered expanding the amount of cache we use, though we could do this easily and inexpensively. Of course DataCore's automated High Availability and Disaster Recovery solutions are equally as important for these critical applications. The technology is awesome."

"SAP was the critical element in the project because the SAP system places the highest load and the greatest demand on both performance and on the need for availability," said Jurgen Bechtel, CIO of MENNEKES, a global leader in the manufacturing of electrical products with headquarters in Germany. "The result was very positive -- SAP runs on DataCore, with more performance than on our previous storage systems. The DataCore solution simply proved itself."

"We've been able to support far more virtual machines and far more I/O requests than the IT team had originally expected. Performance has been nothing short of phenomenal," said Craig Beetlestone, lead systems engineer at Ports of Auckland, New Zealand's leading 24x7, 365-day-a-year port company. "With SANsymphony, we have seen the benefits first-hand of improved uptime and being able to do operational maintenance without affecting the business. Lastly, we have peace of mind. We know we don't have to throw away any functionality intelligence because we get to keep using SANsymphony software even as the hardware underneath changes."

For more on virtualizing and running I/O intensive tier 1 applications, go to: http://www.datacore.com/Solutions/Applications.aspx.

Taking Storage Hypervisors to the Next Level

  

 One of the most valuable things newcomers bring to a corporate team is a fresh perspective. This is especially true when he or she fills a newly-created position, as is the case with Steve Houck, DataCore’s new Chief Operating Officer, who’s tasked with organizing and driving our rapid growth to maintain our leadership in storage virtualization.

Steve’s previous roles included vice president of worldwide channels for VMware, along with various global sales leadership posts at EMC Corporation. Steve has also held executive posts for global field sales and go-to-market strategy development at start-up ventures focused on cloud computing and flash storage, with the most recent executive role at Astute Networks, an innovative SSD technology company.

This week we’d like to share with you a brief conversation with Steve, illuminating the high points of his perspective on the storage virtualization market, DataCore, and SANsymphony-V R9. Q. What brought you to DataCore?
“The opportunity really stood out for me, given my experience at EMC and VMware, and later two startups in the data center/cloud space. Its pretty clear that we’re going through the biggest IT transformation of our lifetime, and we’ve reached an inflection point. When customers start virtualizing their tier-one business applications and production environments, they find that that their storage architectures were too complicated to sustain that effort. As a result, over the past 24 months or so, the market has moved steadily into DataCore’s sweet spot.


Q. Why now? DataCore’s been in business for 14 years. What changed to make storage hypervisors a sweet spot?
“Again, complexity. Until server virtualization took off, the pain just wasn’t intense enough to force customers to fundamentally re-evaluate their storage architecture. For years, the biggest discussion was about which storage vendor to commit to. But things are moving so fast now that customers don’t want to tie themselves to one vendor anymore. No matter how broad their vision, you’re going to run off the edge at some point, and that kills the agility that’s the whole point of virtualization and cloud computing.”


Q. What do you see as DataCore’s fundamental advantages?
“Technology goes without saying: that’s the foundation of the performance gains, increased agility, and lower costs that SANsymphony-V delivers. Maturity, too. There’s over ten years of code behind this, and thousands of customers—that’s why I call DataCore a 14-year-old startup. But above all, the real barrier to entry is that DataCore is an agnostic pure storage play: we’re not a part of anyone’s virtualization stack but we play well with all of them. That puts the customer and our partners in the driver’s seat.”


Q. What will your primary focus at DataCore be?
“On a high level, building relationships with strategic partners, with channel partners, and with customers. Our recent SANsymphony-V release takes our storage hypervisor technology to the enterprise level with increased scalability and integration with major system monitoring tools. Likewise, I want to take the DataCore ecosystem to the next level with volume resellers, system integrators, cloud providers, solid state disk (SSD) vendors and appliance system builders selling SANsymphony-V, to give customers more choice and the ability to do projects they just couldn’t afford or manage before.


“Our channel partners will be a big part of this. Integrators who grabbed the brass ring back when server virtualization started to take off—I saw this at VMware—were able to break away from the pack and establish themselves as major players, leapfrogging their competition in the process.


“I see the same opportunity for the DataCore channel. SANsymphony-V enables them to build the best, most scalable, most efficient storage architectures for their customers by leveraging all of their storage expertise and vendor relationships. We add value to their entire portfolio, and a lot of my focus will be on demonstrating that with actual customer engagements to build our channel.”

For more about Steve Houck and his new role at DataCore, click here: DataCore Software Appoints Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Industry Veteran Steve Houck to Newly Created Chief Operating Officer Role.

DataCore Software Storage Hypervisor Energizes Reseller Channel; SANsymphony-V 9.0 Garners Significant Praise from Partner Community

Channel Partners Find the SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor Essential for

Solving Customers’ Most Pressing Data Storage Challenges

DataCore Software announced that resellers are supporting the new release of DataCore’s SANsymphony-V 9.0 storage hypervisor to address the top storage challenges their customers are facing, including: budgetary constraints, systems performance, application uptime and the need for flexibility and freedom of choice. DataCore reseller partners serve as trusted IT solutions and services providers, solving significant storage and business challenges for their customers.

“The trend to virtualize storage-intensive, tier 1 applications like databases and mail systems has really pushed the limits of performance and business continuity for many storage architectures,” explained Jason Cherveny, president and CEO, Sanity Solutions, a DataCore reseller partner. “DataCore makes it practical to help clients meet their demanding application needs and not have to rip and replace everything to do it.”

Moreover, according to Barry Martin, partner and chief technical architect of The Mirazon Group, another IT solutions provider and DataCore partner, “Chief among the obstacles our customers are facing is flexibility of storage. The challenges we hear range from affordability of technology to overcoming performance roadblocks to ensuring non-stop business operations and uptime through high availability. Most organizations have multiple concerns and every customer comes to us with a different perspective on what is most important to them.”

A large hospital that recently engaged Mirazon was a perfect example of the wide variety of problems that organizations face with their storage environments. Chiefly, they needed to replicate data to a disaster recovery (DR) site and required a solution that would ease the migration to their next storage array of choice.

“SANsymphony-V is the ideal, flexible software platform for building completely virtualized infrastructures,” continued Martin. “In fact, we run our business on a SAN powered by DataCore SANsymphony-V. I can tell you from our own internal use of the product, and as a small business, that it has provided us with a very robust SAN at a very affordable price, one that is built to our precise needs and specifications. This is exactly why we deploy the DataCore storage hypervisor for our customers. As with us, it gives them the ability to have both choice and control of their storage.”

Freedom of Choice and More: Performance and Uptime

“SANsymphony-V 9.0 is the latest version of an intelligent virtualization solution from an experienced, independent software provider with no bias for specific hardware manufacturers,” stated Jim Steinlage, president and CEO at Choice Solutions, a DataCore reseller partner.

Resellers also emphasize the performance enhancements that SANsymphony-V 9.0 delivers.

“DataCore’s storage hypervisor improves performance and protects the investments of any legacy equipment our customers already own as well as equipment they purchase in the future,” explained Martin. “SANsymphony-V 9.0 simply makes any storage faster, while delivering maximum ROI.”

Resellers agree that SANsymphony-V 9.0 solves perhaps the most pressing of all IT challenges – uptime. With synchronously mirrored copies each running the storage hypervisor, customers can perform maintenance of their SAN, even in the middle of the day, without disruption to end users. It also allows customers to eliminate storage downtime, which is paramount for avoiding performance issues with all other aspects of their virtualized infrastructure, including servers, desktops and tier 1 applications. This uptime is not just critical to resellers meeting the maintenance needs of their customers, but also for building out or replacing backend disks and storage arrays.

“If a storage array is front-ended by DataCore, we can literally expire those disks, add new storage and bring that into the pool with zero downtime,” noted Martin.

Resellers Praise Enhancements to SANsymphony-V

“DataCore is ‘on the move,’” added Martin. “They have demonstrated very well over the past year and a half that they are taking SANsymphony-V to the enterprise after experiencing tremendous success in the SMB space. What we are seeing in SANsymphony-V 9.0, and what we have been exposed to in terms of features beyond release 9.0, removes all barriers to selling the product to any organization – small or large. From a business standpoint, it’s a great time to partner with DataCore Software.”

DataCore development is primarily driven by direct partner and customer feedback. According to resellers, the following enhancements to SANsymphony-V 9.0 are proving particularly effective, listed in order of significance: 

·         Auto-tiering and Heat Map Fine Tuning for optimal performance and SSD utilization

·         Integration with major system monitoring tools (i.e., Microsoft, VMware, Hitachi and SNMP)

·         Scalability and High-Availability: N+1 grid, scale up and out

·         Multi-site replication and recovery: many-to-one, one-to-many, DR readiness test mode

“We love working with DataCore and providing solutions to our customers based on the SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor,” concluded Cherveny. "DataCore enables us to solve tough problems, perform non-disruptive migrations and cost-effectively insert new technologies like flash storage into customers’ existing infrastructures.”

Derby Supply Chain Solutions Achieves Business Continuity Objectives with DataCore Software’s Storage Hypervisor

"The biggest benefit that we have experienced with SANsymphony-V is business continuity that has enabled our organization to consolidate and virtualize the bulk of our server infrastructure," stated Joshua Taylor, senior systems administrator at Derby Supply Chain Solutions. "Prior to embracing DataCore's storage hypervisor-based solution for storage virtualization, our server infrastructure was on aging hardware and was therefore very unreliable. Our users have definitely experienced much better uptime and continuity than what they had experienced previously without DataCore."

Beyond the high availability, Derby also reports that it has attained a new level of investment protection and greater utilization of their storage resources – all because they chose to virtualize their storage the right way, with DataCore’s device independent software-based storage hypervisor SANsymphony-V.

Derby Supply Chain Solutions delivers supply chain solutions for assembly, packaging, warehousing and distribution to companies of all sizes, including global enterprises like Whirlpool, GE, Volvo, Mack, Godiva, and more. Derby is a complete third party logistics solution, providing its customers with the ability to streamline their assembly, packaging, warehousing and distribution processes. Derby works collaboratively with its customers to develop innovative, effective and scalable solutions. The company offers physical warehousing and logistics services as well as software solutions that enable customers to view and in some cases, control how their products move through the supply chain.

According to Taylor, a "day in the life" prior to DataCore was one that included far too many disparate systems, with data strewn onto almost every device possible. There was no easy-to-use backup solution, and trying to manage storage was "a nightmare." Taylor said the IT system’s lack of redundancy caused "almost daily" problems at the company, particularly with the aging hardware that was in place at the time.

“Derby Supply Chain Solutions looked at other options from EMC and Dell before choosing DataCore,” commented Taylor. “However, after researching SANsymphony-V and seeing the cost-to-performance benefits and the total cost of ownership compared to those other solutions, we knew that DataCore was the best option.”

The Mirazon Group, an IT solutions provider and prolific DataCore partner, understood Derby Supply Chain Solutions’ IT objectives. They implemented DataCore’s storage hypervisor technology at Derby – ensuring that the overall project was a success and transforming the existing network into the virtualized infrastructure that Derby needed.

Seamless business continuity with DataCore storage virtualization 
With DataCore’s SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor, Taylor said that end users at Derby Supply Chain Solutions have experienced a much higher level of uptime and continuity than was previously available. Because a number of the servers at Derby are legacy servers, Taylor and team are in the process of phasing these out in favor of newer systems. In order to do so, they have deployed virtual machines to seamlessly move systems off legacy servers, without interruption. The three main VMware ESX hosts that currently support 36 VMs are running on Dell™ PowerEdge™ R805 Servers.

The power of software: SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor is defined by freedom, flexibility and ease of use 
In addition to overall reliability, Taylor praised DataCore’s storage hypervisor for having the benefits associated with software-as-infrastructure, particularly ease of implementation and use. "I have seen first-hand the software advantage that DataCore brings to its users. While perhaps not self-evident until you have the storage virtualization software deployed, it is very similar to what you get through server virtualization software by way of freedom and flexibility. Moreover, in terms of storage management interfaces and management tools I have dealt with in the past, DataCore's software-based approach to storage virtualization through its storage hypervisor is easier to implement and manage than anything I have been exposed to before. Other interfaces for storage appliances can be clumsy and non-intuitive. The interface from DataCore makes storage management much, much easier."

For this and other testimonials of DataCore’s industry-leading storage hypervisor, please visit:Customer Snapshot: Derby Supply Chain Solutions.
Full link: http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/Derby-Supply-Chain-Solutions.aspx 

DataCore Software Storage Hypervisor Boosts Performance and Resiliency of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 for Enterprises

http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=20845

An Ideal Platform for SQL Server 2012
DataCore’s SANsymphony-V abstracts and presents disk storage from different devices to applications as a shared pool of resources. With an ability to process multiple database requests in tandem, the system can absorb random I/O spikes. Built-in adaptive caching fully leverages available memory to boost I/O performance of both read and write traffic. Database administrators (DBAs) have the option of using flash memory/SSDs, high-speed arrays, capacity disks or even cloud storage, all of which can be managed and auto-tiered efficiently by the storage hypervisor. Automated tiering also ensures highly active data files don’t compete with inactive blocks of data for I/O cycles. Additionally, transaction logs and other active data can remain on Tier 1, while backups and other inactive read-only data move to lower tiers.

DataCore also empowers high performance flash and SSD-based storage systems from alliance partners Fusion-IO, Texas Memory Systems, Violin, Savage IO, X-IO Technologies and other SSD vendors to deliver the very best price/performance to meet the needs of demanding SQL application workloads.

For SQL database protection, DBAs can schedule ongoing space-efficient snapshots with application-aware recovery points, or utilize DataCore’s CDP feature to capture and log all changes and allow recovery back to any point in time versus to a specific snapshot image.

Channelnomics: DataCore Joins VirtualSharp for Disaster Recovery

http://channelnomics.com/2012/08/01/datacore-joins-virtualsharp-disaster-recovery/

Backing up is more than good practice, it’s a mission-criticla function.
DataCore Software Corp. and VirtualSharp Software Corp. have taken that ethos to heart, teaming up to release a backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution that promises to be “the next step” in the field. The duo is so confident, it calls the solution “disaster recovery assurance” and promises downtime will become a thing of the past.

DataCore and VirtualSharp have more than BDR on the brain: The team is also streamlining the process. According to Gartner Inc., this is a key concern among businesses because the implementation and planning of “IT disaster recovery management [is a] pain point for many of Gartner’s [own] clients.” It certainly paints a picture of case-positive for the duo’s new solution – and with the increasing pressure to meet compliance, privacy, continuity and security demands, making BDR easy isn’t a frivolous activity.

True “disaster recovery assurance” is achieved by blending each company’s key technologies, which were already complementary to start.

DataCore’s claim to fame is its virtualized storage hypervisor built into the SANsymphony-V software. It allows for heterogeneous, scalable and cloud-inclusive backup, with mirroring capabilities, frequent snapshots, multiple-site backup replication and regular verification of data integrity within the backup. In the event of a backup site failure, the SANsymphony-V will instantly re-sync across disaster recovery sites as soon as the problem site becomes available.

VirtualSharp lends its ReliableDR, which boasts “guaranteed push-button failover and failback across clouds.” Leveraging SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor, ReliableDR works without hampering the recovery environment by creating “application and service-aware snapshots at a DR site that are guaranteed to work” as soon as a user flicks the switch. That instant-on backup capability allows this backup team to boast both disaster recovery assurance and the ability to meet strict recovery-point and time-based objectives, should a company require it.
Together, the solution has been dubbed SANsymphony-V plus ReliableDR. To get your hands on it, head over to either DataCore’s or VirtualSharp’s partner portal. Both companies are channel-friendly and feature a host of alliance partners, including VMware Inc., Citrix Systems Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Worth noting: DataCore and VirtualSharp’s BDR approach is a software-only solution, making it flexible and uniquely tuned for the needs of cloud and virtualization...

DataCore Storage Hypervisor Is Integrated and Optimized for Microsoft System Center 2012; Simplifies Storage Management for Private Clouds

System Center Alliance Partnership Enables Administrators to Deploy Smarter Private Clouds that Benefit from Richer Features, Including the Ability to Manage Itself

 
“Microsoft continues to partner with the world’s leading solution providers to bring companies the IT tools they need for achieving business goals,” said Andrew Conway, director of System Center product management at Microsoft. “DataCore’s SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor is a great complement to System Center. Together, they are helping businesses create, manage and monitor dynamic private cloud environments and reap the full benefits of their virtualization initiatives.”

DataCore Software, the storage hypervisor leader, premier provider of storage virtualization software and a Microsoft System Center Alliance partner, today announced that the company’s SANsymphony™-V Storage Hypervisor is optimized to work with Microsoft System Center 2012, allowing enterprises and data center operators to realize a new level of performance, manageability and ease-of-use from their private cloud deployments.

DataCore’s SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor allows Microsoft System Center 2012 users to gain the benefits of high availability and resiliency, disaster recovery, storage optimization and automated tiering, and capacity on-demand all through an intuitive and simplistic storage management interface. Together with Microsoft System Center 2012, IT administrators enjoy a high-performance private cloud environment requiring minimal management and time resources. End users are able to request resources, including storage provisioning with minimal IT involvement, creating an automated, self-service environment that can manage itself, including self-repair. This leaves administrators with more time to devote to their core functions versus managing the tedious complexities of their network infrastructure.
Read more at http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2012/08/07/datacore-software-sansymphony-v-storage-hypervisor-optimized-microsoft-system-center-2012#Y9OCtWAOLomeF1dB.99

Other Microsoft related News:

DataCore Software Storage Hypervisor Boosts Performance and Resiliency of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 for Enterprises

An Ideal Platform for SQL Server 2012:
DataCore’s SANsymphony-V abstracts and presents disk storage from different devices to applications as a shared pool of resources. With an ability to process multiple database requests in tandem, the system can absorb random I/O spikes. Built-in adaptive caching fully leverages available memory to boost I/O performance of both read and write traffic. Database administrators (DBAs) have the option of using flash memory/SSDs, high-speed arrays, capacity disks or even cloud storage, all of which can be managed and auto-tiered efficiently by the storage hypervisor. Automated tiering also ensures highly active data files don’t compete with inactive blocks of data for I/O cycles. Additionally, transaction logs and other active data can remain on Tier 1, while backups and other inactive read-only data move to lower tiers.

DataCore also empowers high performance flash and SSD-based storage systems from alliance partners Fusion-IO, Texas Memory Systems, Violin, Savage IO, X-IO Technologies and other SSD vendors to deliver the very best price/performance to meet the needs of demanding SQL application workloads.

For SQL database protection, DBAs can schedule ongoing space-efficient snapshots with application-aware recovery points, or utilize DataCore’s CDP feature to capture and log all changes and allow recovery back to any point in time versus to a specific snapshot image.

Spalding University Reduces the Cost of Storage and Realizes True High Availability with DataCore Software’s SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor

Ezra Krumhansl, director of information technology at Spalding University, was looking to increase storage capacity in response to the university’s exponentially increasing amounts of data and to also address a critical flaw in their SAN (storage area network): lack of redundancy/single point of failure. The university was growing quickly and its infrastructure needed to be updated to support this growth.

“We needed to perform significant upgrades to our storage environment and infrastructure so that it could support our growing school,” commented Krumhansl. “In addressing our needs, including introducing redundancy, we weighed many options from the likes of HP and Dell to potentially replace our legacy IBM SAN. DataCore’s SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor gave us the flexibility we required to perform a robust upgrade and accomplish all of our goals, without breaking the bank. Being an institution of higher education, we always need to do more with less, so that Spalding can keep tuitions costs affordable to the communities we serve.”
Preparing for the Exam
During the initial selection process, Spalding University considered solutions by HP’s LeftHand and Dell’s EqualLogic to potentially replace their existing IBM fiber channel SAN. A major point of concern was to avoid two things: vendor lock-in and having to perform a very costly rip-and-replace hardware upgrade in just a few years. Krumhansl determined that Spalding University’s IBM SAN did need to be upgraded from its four terabyte (TB) capacity. It was also a single point of failure and did not have any redundancy built in.

Krumhansl wanted failover capability – both for the purposes of disaster recovery/business continuity and for reasons concerning systems maintenance. Bottom-line: Spalding needed non-stop business operations and high-availability, both for the planned and for the unplanned.

Spalding weighed its options of upgrading to a newer IBM fiber channel SAN, or selecting either LeftHand or EqualLogic. The upfront costs with IBM hardware and SANsymphony-V proved lower, as were the long-term/lifetime costs of support, renewals, etc. The real differentiator for Spalding University was having a software solution that was device independent, making hardware merely a commodity.

Storage Hypervisor Makes the Grade
Spalding University ultimately decided to stay with IBM, purchasing IBM 3650 servers, each running DataCore’s SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor. Krumhansl was able to accomplish his goals of virtualizing Spalding’s infrastructure and increasing storage capacity and redundancy. Spalding relied on The Mirazon Group to put storage virtualization software from DataCore at the heart of its IT infrastructure. The Mirazon Group serves as a trusted IT advisor to Spalding University as well as to approximately 50 other DataCore Software customers.

Spalding’s storage infrastructure is now virtualized and supports 22 TBs of data. It is running 30 virtual machines on 15 physical servers. In addition to DataCore for storage, Krumhansl uses VMware for both server and desktop virtualization.

A co-location facility (called “Peak 10”), located just a mile and a half from the university hosts both the primary and secondary mirrored systems – thereby providing the high-availability required by Spalding. The university is connected to this co-location facility through fiber channel connectivity.

“The biggest benefit we have realized with the DataCore storage hypervisor is replication – meaning synchronous, real-time mirroring and the virtualization of the backend storage environment. The data protection features definitely hit home. We don’t worry about losing a hard drive or data because there is redundancy built in, in so far as our having two nodes and even having redundancy within them,” explained Krumhansl.
Krumhansl continues, “The device independence also enables us to install, mix and match any server combination we choose, allowing us to leverage, where needed, the best features that each brand has to offer. The bottom line is that we have the freedom and flexibility to make investments that best suit our needs, both at the time and into the future. Regardless of whether we need an expensive, high performance server for frequently used resources, a cheaper, lower performing one or if we just want to repurpose and extend the viability of existing hardware, we know the storage hypervisor can manage them all.”

 The full case study may be found here: http://www.datacore.com/Testimonials/Spalding-University.aspx

DataCore Software Launches Migration Suite for Data Center Relocations, VM Moves, System Refreshes and Storage Migrations

Disk Migration Suite Enables Non-stop Business Operations During Data Center Relocations, VM Moves, System Refreshes and Storage Migrations

SANsymphony-V Disk Migration Suite Keeps Critical Users and Applications Up-and-Running; Empowers Professional Service Providers to Simplify, Fast-track and Cost-Effectively Tackle Customer Projects

DataCore Softwaret announced the SANsymphony™-V Disk Migration Suite, now available for DataCore authorized and trained solution providers to deliver a range of non-disruptive migration services to meet end-user client needs. The SANsymphony-V Disk Migration Suite minimizes the time and cost associated with storage-related disruption and downtime, providing non-stop business operations to keep critical users and applications running undisturbed during maintenance, migration, system moves or whatever data storage upheaval is occurring behind-the-scenes.

“In customer meetings, I am often met with skepticism that there is no way to do an easy migration without a lot of disruption. After they see the power of DataCore storage virtualization software in action, their jaws literally drop because they cannot believe that it can be that simple to migrate their storage and VMs,” said Barry Martin, partner and chief technical architect at The Mirazon Group, a DataCore solution and professional services provider.

The suite combines SANsymphony-V software licenses and access to DataCore’s call support center for a trained solution and services provider to implement and complete a specific customer migration project. Additionally, rather than having to purchase the SANsymphony-V software outright, migration services providers can take advantage of the powerful migration features under a 30 day license model, enabling them to cost-effectively get difficult customer migration and data center relocation projects completed within more limited budgets.

The SANsymphony-V Disk Migration Suite significantly reduces the hours, effort and downtime required to migrate disk contents and VMs between storage devices and systems. It is most often used during a hardware refresh to help replace older storage arrays with newer devices. The Suite generally is configured to run on separate servers inserted between the hosts and the storage systems. After the simple set up, non-disruptive migrations are simple to perform.

“DataCore’s SANsymphony-V Disk Migration Suite turns what has been a very problematic and time consuming hardware refresh task into something quick, reliable and simple. The software passes-through access to the original disks, while copying their contents to the new storage equipment in the background,” explained Augie Gonzalez begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting, director of product marketing, DataCore Software. “After the new device is fully synchronized it can be reconnected directly to the hosts, leaving the older device to be used in another capacity or decommissioned.”

Cost-Effective Storage Migration for Real-World Needs
Recently, the SANsymphony-V Disk Migration Suite facilitated the non-disruptive move of a complete data center for DataCore customer Homecare Homebase™. The Mirazon Group was responsible for the migration and Brent Earls, senior systems engineer at the IT solution provider and consultancy, lauded the role the technology played during this process, noting: “We were able to move Homecare Homebase from one data center to another data center using the DataCore SANsymphony-V Disk Migration Suite. There were 200+ virtual machines (VMs) that were moved with no downtime whatsoever.”

According to Earls, DataCore’s software provided a high availability stretch site mirroring capability and other features that kept the customer’s environment up and “hot” during the whole migration, even though all of the VMs that were migrated were customer-facing.

“These migration capabilities are a godsend to IT services and solution providers, as well as to IT administrators who are responsible for the uptime of their organizations and need help to complete such projects,” added Earls. “The SANsymphony-V Disk Migration Suite delivers the right tools to keeps users and applications running undisturbed while necessary refresh maintenance, migrations or relocations are occurring behind the scenes.”

Licensing, Pricing and Availability
The SANsymphony™-V Disk Migration Suite is now generally available from DataCore-authorized partners located around the world. Please contact your local DataCore representative to locate a partner or for additional details and information.

For more information, please download the datasheet (PDF) at: http://s.datacore.com/MigrationSuite

DataCore Software and VirtualSharp Software Announce Partnership to Deliver Disaster Recovery Assurance

DataCore Software and VirtualSharp Software, the leading provider of next generation automated Disaster Recovery solutions for private and public clouds, today announced a technology partnership that integrates storage virtualization with Disaster Recovery automation to deliver the next step in Disaster Recovery management: Disaster Recovery Assurance.

“The time and resource costs of Disaster Recovery plan exercising, especially that which is supported by manual or semi-manual processes, have become the most significant IT Disaster Recovery Management pain point for many of Gartner’s clients,” wrote John Morency,
research vice president at Gartner, Inc. in “Best Practices for Planning and Managing Disaster Recovery Testing” (Research Paper G00215785).

“Non-stop, reliable business continuity is an absolute imperative today, regardless of an organization’s size or market,” stated Carlos M. Carreras, vice president of alliances and business development, DataCore Software. “SMBs, private cloud operators and even the largest enterprises require the ability to recover from an IT disaster without losing any data. Together with VirtualSharp, we are bringing complete assurance to the cloud and grant IT administrators the peace of mind knowing their information will always be protected and retrievable.”

“Virtualization’s benefits now extend to storage, and DataCore’s storage hypervisor makes storage more efficient and agile for thousands of companies worldwide,” said Carlos Escapa, Co-Founder and CEO of VirtualSharp Software. “It was an easy decision to partner with DataCore to make Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery simpler, certain and more affordable.”

The DataCore SANsymphony™-V storage hypervisor gives customers a solid foundation for Business Continuity and delivers powerful, infrastructure-wide, device-independent storage virtualization that can manage environments of all sizes and quickly roll out agile, scalable storage infrastructures, including cloud. SANsymphony-V provides snapshots, synchronous mirroring for high availability, and asynchronous replication to remote Disaster Recovery sites. Disaster Recovery procedures can be periodically tested and verified without disturbing production activities at other points in the storage environment. Similarly, the software allows rapid resynchronization and resumption of a temporarily suspended site.

VirtualSharp Software’ ReliableDR adds 100 percent automated Disaster Recovery testing for guaranteed push-button failover and failback across clouds. Without any footprint or impact on the production environment, it works with the SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor to create application and service-aware snapshots at a Disaster Recovery site that are guaranteed to work, making it easy to enforce recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO).

"DataCore and VirtualSharp integrate seamlessly to leverage storage and server virtualization and enable highly resilient enterprise clouds," said John Greenwood, sales director at NCE Computer Group. "We are impressed by the synergy and close collaboration that these two vendors are demonstrating."

DataCore Software Appoints Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Industry Veteran Steve Houck to Newly Created Chief Operating Officer Role

In the Wake of Launching SANsymphony-V 9.0, “The Storage Hypervisor for the Cloud,” DataCore Expands Management Team to Respond to New Market Opportunities and Growth

DataCore Software today announced the appointment of its first Chief Operating Officer (COO), Steve Houck. The new position was created to organize and drive DataCore’s rapid growth and market leadership in storage virtualization. Houck is a highly regarded veteran in virtualization, flash storage, cloud computing and data center technologies. His previous roles included vice president of worldwide channels for VMware, along with various global sales leadership posts at EMC Corporation. Houck has also held executive posts for global field sales and go-to-market strategy development at start-up ventures focused on cloud computing and flash storage, with the most recent executive role at Astute Networks, an innovative SSD technology company.

“DataCore’s industry leadership – combined with a top-notch management team and superb market conditions – presented a perfect scenario for all involved,” stated Steve Houck, COO, DataCore Software. “The momentum toward storage virtualization adoption is palpable and SANsymphony-V 9.0 is head-and-shoulders above any other solution. I look forward to ensuring DataCore builds upon its success and reputation for delivering ‘must have’ technology.”



DataCore Upscales Solutions & Management Team to Capture New Market Opportunities
The appointment comes in the wake of DataCore launching a new version of its leading-edge storage hypervisor, SANsymphony™-V 9.0, which targets larger scale data centers and cloud storage infrastructures. With the success of SANsymphony-V 9.0, as well as the launch of new Cloud Service Provider (CSP) and System Builder programs, DataCore is scaling up to take advantage of new business opportunities and expand routes-to-market in order to keep pace with growing demand for its technology worldwide.

DataCore’s new SANsymphony-V 9.0 – “The Storage Hypervisor for the Cloud” – squarely meets a market need for IT directors and systems administrators seeking to manage enterprise-wide storage and quickly roll out agile, scalable virtualized storage infrastructures. The new capabilities are driven by:

• Organizations planning private cloud deployments.
• Large data centers seeking responsive, cloud-like services.
• CSPs developing public, private and hybrid cloud offerings.

A guided tour video of SANsymphony-V and additional “at-a-glance” information is available here: http://www.datacore.com/Software/Products/SANsymphony-V.aspx

The Next Level: New Targets and New Routes to Market
“Our pursuit of available market opportunities and the success of SANsymphony-V made it important for DataCore to add an executive of Steve’s caliber to build on our momentum,” said George Teixeira, president and CEO, DataCore Software. “Steve is a proven leader and his market experience, initiative and ability to build and grow successful business partnerships will enable us to seize new market opportunities and scale our company to the next level.”

DataCore is investing in its team, technology and go-to-market strategy in many ways. Houck’s new position coincides with the rollout of new routes-to-market for DataCore products, specifically through Cloud Service Providers (CSPs)s and system builders.
DataCore is committed to working with partners to build an ecosystem of appliance-focused, value-add versions of its storage hypervisor that meets the individual needs of customers. New business development efforts are underway that further support volume resellers, system integrators, solid state disk (SSD) vendors and appliance system builders selling SANsymphony-V.

For background information, please see: DataCore Software Targets Volume Resellers, System Integrators, SSD Vendors and System Builders with Fast-Start Business Development Programs.

To learn more and to get started with these new programs, please contact the DataCore Business Development team at alliances@datacore.com.

Fusion-io Speed and DataCore Software Agility: Evolution Beats Extinction - Big Data Opens New Niches with Fast Flash Memory

Below is the recent Blog post written by DataCore's CEO George Teixeira which was recently featured on the Fusion-io main Blog site.

65 million years ago, a six-mile-wide asteroid ended the reign of the dinosaurs, reopening ecological niches that were promptly filled by members of the class Mammalia, one of which, a long time later, went on to invent things like writing, the wheel, and information technology.

Big Data—ultra large scale data storage and analysis—is the storage market’s equivalent of that big rock, but rather than causing mass extinction, it’s simply opening up a lot of new ecological niches for storage technologies, especially advanced solutions like Fusion ioMemory modules and the new release of DataCore's SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor. The advent of Big Data also offers a unique opportunity to re-architect your storage management infrastructure in a way that can prolong the life of storage “dinosaurs” and make it more adaptable in every respect and more easily aligned to business needs.

As profiled in the New York Times, Big Data is transforming business, government, and education. One researcher reported that a study of 179 large companies showed that those adopting the data-driven decision-making that Big Data makes possible “achieved productivity gains that were 5 percent to 6 percent higher than other factors could explain.”

Big Data is more than just big. It’s restless, too, and best used when hot. Let it cool off, and you lose the situational awareness that can lead to big-time financial rewards. It’s not just a matter of storing a gazillion bytes—you can’t possibly store it all, so your retention policies have to change, and the need to widely share data as quickly as possible means your networking strategies have to change as well.

Fortunately, a storage hypervisor can be a big help in adapting to Big Data. Even better, the benefits of this software layer, which insulates you from all the hardware variables that Big Data can throw your way, kick in long before Big Data arrives. A scalable and comprehensive storage hypervisor like DataCore’s SANsymphony-V is an agent of change: you get the pay-off today and a future-proof storage infrastructure. It also, as we’ll see, can give you an even better return on your Fusion-io ioMemory module investments.

SANsymphony-V provides a complete "storage management stack" and gives you a centralized console that enables you to efficiently pool all your storage resources, mirror and replicate data for high availability, cache data near applications for higher performance, automatically allocate space, and direct traffic to the optimal tier.

Resource pooling has the most immediate impact, because you can aggregate all of your storage capacity, without regard for brand, model, or interface, and easily reclaim unused space. These pooled resources can be easily mirrored locally for high availability, or replicated remotely for disaster recovery. Thin provisioning gives you just-in-time storage allocation for highly efficient use of disk space, and RAM caching speeds up “spindle-based” storage dramatically to turbocharge native disk array performance. The fact that all of these advantages are available to every storage resource managed by SANsymphony-V means that older storage that formerly might have been shuffled off to the dinosaur’s graveyard remains useful longer, leading to a higher ROI for all your storage investments.

Fusion-io Fast Flash Memory and DataCore Auto-tiering Software
When it comes to Big Data, however, it’s probably auto-tiering that’s likely to be of most interest to customers who rely on Fusion-io technology. SANsymphony’s auto-tiering can dynamically direct workloads to the right storage resource based either on access frequency or business rules, so that the hottest data gets the most attention. Older storage can be moved down-tier as new hardware is installed, again prolonging its service life. SANsymphony-V also offers a “cloud gateway” to leverage cloud service providers for both disaster recovery and archival of virtually unlimited capacity—a necessity to keep from getting squashed by Big Data.

This enables SANsymphony-V to put Fusion-io’s server class memory tier at the very top of an agile, easily-managed storage hierarchy that offers unprecedented levels of performance and availability. You can easily balance data value and the need for speed against price/capacity constraints—something that Big Data is going to make ever more necessary—and make sure that you get the utmost benefit from ioMemory modules.

The fallout from Big Data is going to transform business computing at every level, so if you don’t want to end up a data dinosaur, now’s the time to transform your infrastructure with a storage hypervisor. A good place to start is Jon Toigo’s Storage Virtualization for Rock Stars series, starting with Hitting the Perfect Chord in Storage Efficiency, which will give you a good overview of how a storage hypervisor can help you increase engineering, operational, and financial efficiency.

DataCore Software Storage Hypervisor Empowers Enterprises to Fully Realize the Benefits of Microsoft SQL Server 2012; Boosts Performance and Resiliency

SANsymphony-V Optimizes Resources, Accelerates Performance and Adds Business Continuity to Fulfill Storage Needs of Enterprises Deploying Microsoft SQL Server 

Computer Technology review: http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14863:datacore-sansymphony-v-enables-enterprises-to-realize-benefits-of-microsoft-sql-server-2012&catid=320:breaking-news&Itemid=2701739

DataCore Software today announced that Microsoft SQL Server 2012 is verified “DataCore Ready” and integrates easily with SANsymphony-V. DataCore’s SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor helps boost performance of underlying and often diverse storage resources and enhances the business continuity and data protection of databases. As a result, it provides an agile storage infrastructure that is perfectly suited for resource intensive database applications supported by Microsoft SQL Server 2012. 

Databases are one of the most demanding applications in terms of their need for performance and high-availability due to the enormous volumes of data and transactions they typically store and use. DataCore’s SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor includes critical features which make it an ideal storage platform to leverage the benefits of Microsoft SQL Server 2012, including:

• Powerful centralized storage management under a single pane of control with an intuitive graphical user interface and automated wizards that implement best practices 
• Automated storage tiering to maximize price/performance of available storage assets 
• Adaptive caching for performance acceleration 
• Thin provisioning for space efficiency 
• Synchronous mirroring for high-availability 
• Low-impact online snapshots for high-speed disk to disk backup 
• Pass through disks for non-disruptive migrations 
• Continuous data protection (CDP) for any point in time backup and recovery 
• Unified storage for managing file shares (NAS) and SANs

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 helps address the challenges of increasing data volumes by rapidly turning data into actionable business insights. It expands on Microsoft’s commitment to help customers manage any data, regardless of size, both on-premise and in the cloud. Customers choosing SQL Server 2012 enjoy the benefit of a rich hardware and software partner ecosystem that enables solutions for the most unique and demanding data management needs.

An Ideal Platform for SQL Server 2012
DataCore’s SANsymphony-V abstracts and presents disk storage from different devices to applications as a shared pool of resources. With an ability to process multiple database requests in tandem, the system can absorb random I/O spikes. Built-in adaptive caching fully leverages available memory to boost I/O performance of both read and write traffic. Database administrators (DBAs) have the option of using flash memory/SSDs, high-speed arrays, capacity disks or even cloud storage, all of which can be managed and auto-tiered efficiently by the storage hypervisor. Automated tiering also ensures highly active data files don’t compete with inactive blocks of data for I/O cycles. Additionally, transaction logs and other active data can remain on Tier 1, while backups and other inactive read-only data move to lower tiers.

DataCore also empowers high performance flash and SSD-based storage systems from alliance partners Fusion-IO, Texas Memory Systems, Violin, Savage IO, X-IO Technologies and other SSD vendors to deliver the very best price/performance to meet the needs of demanding SQL application workloads.

For SQL database protection, DBAs can schedule ongoing space-efficient snapshots with application-aware recovery points, or utilize DataCore’s CDP feature to capture and log all changes and allow recovery back to any point in time versus to a specific snapshot image. 

Key Benefits for Database Applications
DataCore’s intelligent storage hypervisor software enables enterprises to radically improve the efficiency, performance and availability of their storage infrastructure through virtualization, transforming disparate storage resources into a unified and efficient infrastructure that is flexible, fast, reliable and scalable.

Key benefits include the ability to:

• Optimize performance and create a high-performance pool of virtualized storage for SQL databases, eliminating most storage-related I/O bottlenecks for business-critical applications. 
• Provision virtually any size volumes for SQL applications upfront, and increase utilization and I/O capacity on the fly. 
• Balance cost and performance by storing transaction logs and active data files on higher performance storage devices, while moving backups and inactive data files to lower cost higher capacity drives or cloud storage. 
• Continuously protect databases against downtime and disaster with stretch high-availability design to maximize business continuity. 
• Scale storage for throughput, transactions and capacity that meet the needs of applications. 
• Automate and simplify storage management that has been integrated and tested “DataCore Ready” with SQL Server.

DataCore and Microsoft
DataCore has been developing innovative storage virtualization solutions designed specifically to work on Microsoft platforms for nearly 15 years. It is a longtime and active member of both the Microsoft Partner Solutions Center and theMicrosoft System Center Alliance.

“DataCore remains committed to creating solutions designed to enhance the capabilities of Microsoft platforms and can virtualize and manage enterprise-class storage environments with ease and efficiency,” said Carlos Carreras, vice president of alliances and business development for DataCore Software. “SANsymphony-V’s rich capabilities, such as auto-tiering and thin provisioning, efficiently handle extensive demands placed on storage environments by intensive database applications. Together with SQL Server 2012, DataCore is enabling enterprises to have the robust storage infrastructure critical to attaining maximum returns on their virtualization, cloud and database investments.”

DataCore has worked with Microsoft technologies since it was founded in 1998. The company has deployed over 20,000 systems around the world leveraging the technology, many with highly intensive database applications. DataCore users are also already experiencing some of the benefits of Microsoft SQL Server platforms because Express Local Edition is integrated into SANsymphony-V to store historical performance data

DataCore customers represent a broad spectrum of IT organizations, spanning all major vertical industries, and ranging from large enterprises to small and midsize business. Their physical environments consists of systems from all the major storage manufacturers, including Dell, EMC, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hitachi, HP, IBM, NetApp, and many others.

DataCore Software Named Top Finalists for the 2012 Microsoft Private Cloud Partner of the Year Award

DataCore Software Corporation announced it has been selected as a finalist for the Microsoft Private Cloud Partner of the Year Award.

“We are proud to recognize our 2012 Partner Award finalists for their outstanding commitments to solving customer challenges”

“DataCore is proud and honored to be recognized by Microsoft,” said George Teixeira, president and CEO of DataCore. “For more than a decade, DataCore has developed innovative storage virtualization solutions designed specifically to work on Microsoft platforms. Our newest product, SANsymphony-V 9.0, is a 'storage hypervisor for the cloud' that seamlessly integrates with Microsoft’s virtualization infrastructure products, including Windows Server, Hyper-V, and System Center. Working collaboratively with Microsoft has enabled us to provide the best storage virtualization solution available to our partners and customers alike.”

Awards were presented in multiple categories, with winners chosen from a set of nearly 3,000 entrants worldwide. The Private Cloud Partner of the Year Award recognizes the partner that excelled in offering innovative private cloud solutions for their customers based on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, Microsoft System Center, and related products.

“We are proud to recognize our 2012 Partner Award finalists for their outstanding commitments to solving customer challenges,” said Jon Roskill, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft Corp. “Our partners are critical to our success as a company, and it is their creativity and innovative thinking in solving the unique needs of our customers that serves as the foundation for mutual, long-term success. We congratulate this year’s finalists on their achievements and look forward to following their continued success in the future.”

DataCore’s storage hypervisor innovations enable enterprises of all sizes to quickly roll out agile, scalable cloud storage infrastructures customized to their specific needs. DataCore’s SANsymphony-V 9.0 storage hypervisor excels at pooling distributed storage assets regardless of vendor make or model, whether co-located or many miles away. In large scale scenarios, SANsymphony-V 9.0 uses N+1 redundant grids to ensure necessary and flexible performance expansion and to make cloud storage continuously available.

The Microsoft Partner Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions during the past year.

DataCore Software Rolls Out SANsymphony-V 9.0 Storage Hypervisor for the Cloud

http://www.mspnews.com/channels/cloud/articles/296396-datacore-software-rolls-out-sansymphony-v-90-storage.htm 

The latest version of SANsymphony provides a number of new capabilities to help organizations that are planning private cloud deployments. The solution is also suitable for large data centers that are seeking cloud-like services, and cloud service providers (CSPs) may also benefit in developing public, private and hybrid cloud offerings.

The company has also introduced a new program designed for CSPs, who wish to create cloud storage infrastructure using the SANsymphony solution. The latest version of SANsymphony enables CSPs to call IaaS functions in order to satisfy each of their clients' individual storage needs. DataCore's storage hypervisor offers a wide range of capabilities that may be centrally managed to work throughout an infrastructure.

Storage devices may be profiled and organized into different tiers and optimized dynamically to maximize the use of more expensive or higher performance assets. Virtual disks are also set up and taken down on cue, reclaiming space when the process is finished. The solution offers complete control and visibility of infrastructure via IaaS modules that may be integrated with server hypervisors from VMware and Microsoft, as well as a number of systems and management products like Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager and VMware vCenter.

SANsymphony-V 9.0 may also be scaled up and out, automatically adapting quickly to new requirements without any disruption. Key storage elements beyond disk space are enabled, including the horsepower to multiply IOPS, throughput and caches. And the solution's central management console also scales according to needs to support operations on large groups of related objects while also enabling experts to troubleshoot and fine-tune on a granular basis.

Additional capabilities include pooling of distributed storage assets, agnostic to vendor make or model or whether they are co-located or situated far away. This design harnesses the value of purpose-built storage devices and also eliminates management confusion and complexity. Other features include automatic storage tiering and automatic load balancing, which leads to optimal use of disk space and maximum I/O performance.

"DataCore's latest storage hypervisor innovations, together with both its pricing and rental models, are extremely well tailored for building out cloud storage infrastructures, whether a user is starting out with a modest trial or is well on their way to a full-blown, large scale rollout," said Mark Peters, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group (News - Alert). "It has succeeded in abstracting the storage-related aspects of the Infrastructure-as-a-Service layer so that cloud-storage is easy to drop into place, and can be flexed or expanded at will. It makes perfect sense -- even for contemporary data centers that don't yet have cloud on the brain."

"IaaS modules supported by SANsymphony-V 9.0 orchestrate the dynamic coordination between the catalog choices subscribers see and the storage devices enlisted to meet their needs," said George Teixeira, president and CEO, DataCore Software. "It's what makes cloud storage work unattended."

"We're fast approaching 1,000 days of 100 percent uptime thanks largely to the DataCore platform -- and we continue to check off days on the calendar without a hitch," added Jeff Slapp, chief technology officer at Host.net (News - Alert). "All this while we expand, upgrade, change out storage devices and even reconfigure networks in the background. It offers flexibility and interchangeability at its best."

DataCore Launches “The Storage Hypervisor for the Cloud”

DataCore Launches Large Scale, Automated Infrastructure-as-a-Service Enhancements and Empowers Enterprises with “The Storage Hypervisor for the Cloud”

DataCore Software, the storage hypervisor leader and premier provider of storage virtualization software,  announced far-reaching innovations required to manage enterprise-wide storage and quickly roll out agile, scalable cloud storage infrastructures. Aptly described as “The Storage Hypervisor for the Cloud,” DataCore’s SANsymphony™-V 9.0 offers customers superior flexibility, powerful automation and exceptional value.

The new capabilities are driven by:

•Organizations planning private cloud deployments

•Large data centers seeking responsive, cloud-like services

•Cloud service providers (CSPs) developing public, private and hybrid cloud offerings.

“DataCore’s latest storage hypervisor innovations, together with both its pricing and rental models, are extremely well tailored for building out cloud storage infrastructures, whether a user is starting out with a modest trial or is well on their way to a full-blown, large scale rollout,” said Mark Peters, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “It has succeeded in abstracting the storage-related aspects of the Infrastructure-as-a-Service layer so that cloud-storage is easy to drop into place, and can be flexed or expanded at will. It makes perfect sense – even for contemporary data centers that don’t yet have cloud on the brain.”


Manage Storage Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) to Meet Unpredictable Demands
Storage has long been managed as static, motionless hardware. Each request for capacity requires IT specialists to manually intervene anytime new applications or users demand new storage. That means provisioning space using complicated, device-specific procedures and permanent connections. In contrast, self-service requests for cloud storage come fast and furious in unpredictable patterns. Resources across multiple purpose-built devices with tiered levels of protection must be quickly reserved and subsequently released to make room for the next subscriber. Manual intervention, especially in large scale systems, is overwhelming and simply not an option. It is made even more difficult by the sheer number of devices and the variety of equipment necessary to satisfy the different classes of service.

“IaaS modules supported by SANsymphony-V 9.0 orchestrate the dynamic coordination between the catalog choices subscribers see and the storage devices enlisted to meet their needs,” said George Teixeira, president and CEO, DataCore Software. “It’s what makes cloud storage work unattended.”

Powerful Infrastructure-wide Storage Management and Dynamic Asset Optimization
CSPs can programmatically call the IaaS functions in SANsymphony-V 9.0 to satisfy each client’s individual storage needs. The DataCore storage hypervisor provides an extensive and comprehensive set of capabilities that can be centrally managed and work infrastructure-wide. Storage devices can be profiled and organized into different tiers and optimized dynamically to maximize the efficient use of more expensive and higher performance assets. The software dynamically sets up or tears down virtual disks on cue, reclaiming space when done. For complete control and visibility of the infrastructure, SANsymphony-V 9.0 offers IaaS modules that integrate with popular server hypervisors from VMware and Microsoft, as well as broad systems management products like Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager and VMware vCenter.

Device-Independent Storage Virtualization Scales Up and Out
Variable size is an intrinsic property of cloud infrastructures, dictating that storage pools be segmented, readily expandable and even shrunk according to the changing needs of users. In response, SANsymphony-V 9.0 scales up and scales out, automatically adapting to new requirements quickly and without disruption. That means key storage elements beyond disk space - including the horsepower to multiply IOPS, throughput and caches - can be harnessed quickly for added performance when demand calls for it. The SANsymphony-V 9.0 centralized management console scales accordingly, supporting operations on large groups of related objects for convenience and synchronization, yet allowing experts to troubleshoot and tune on a granular basis.

Scale to Federate Diverse Resources; Automate to Optimize Utilization and Performance
The storage hypervisor excels at pooling distributed storage assets regardless of vendor make or model, whether co-located or many miles away. The hardware-agnostic design harnesses the value of purpose-built storage devices (solid state disks, external storage systems, internal server drives and public cloud storage) while eliminating management confusion and complexity. Automatic storage tiering combined with automatic load balancing results in optimal use of disk space and the ultimate I/O performance. These features are key to fulfilling the dynamic and variable needs of users, applications and the business at a reasonable cost.

The Role of Scale in Realizing Resiliency and Meeting Looming Performance Expansion
In large scale scenarios, SANsymphony-V 9.0 uses N+1 redundant grids to ensure necessary performance expansion and to make cloud storage continuously available. The storage hypervisor anticipates equipment periodically being taken out-of-service for planned and unplanned reasons, redirecting suitable storage resources to take their place in accordance with service level agreements. In effect, a configuration that requires two storage virtualization nodes to handle peak workloads is configured with an active third node to which information is mirrored. The third node is able to take over transparently for any of the others. As the cloud expands, additional nodes can be seamlessly inserted to add performance and facilitate growth.

For evidence of continuous availability with DataCore’s architecture in large scale deployments, one need only look at Host.net, a provider of enterprise private cloud as well as colocation, offsite backup and network solutions. Jeff Slapp, chief technology officer at Host.net explains, “We’re fast approaching 1,000 days of 100 percent uptime thanks largely to the DataCore platform – and we continue to check off days on the calendar without a hitch. All this while we expand, upgrade, change out storage devices and even reconfigure networks in the background. It offers flexibility and interchangeability at its best.”

Unlike traditional data centers, clouds don’t just expand at the core, they expand at the periphery, particularly to remote locations. The satellite locations provide extra safeguards against regional disasters and bring the data closer to distant subscribers. SANsymphony-V 9.0 stretches outwards to connect these sites with 1-to-many and many-to-1 replication options. Disaster recovery procedures can be periodically tested and verified without disturbing production activities at other points in the cloud. Similarly, the software allows rapid resynchronization and resumption of a temporarily suspended site.

Licensing, Pricing and Availability

The new licensing structure for SANsymphony-V 9.0 aligns perfectly with the broad range and scale of the product. It is available in five different virtualization models spanning from very large deployments to small pilot programs and branch applications. Customers can upgrade across levels without any software “throw-away,” disruption or retraining, ensuring maximum ROI. A special licensing program has also been created for Hosters and CSPs. SANsymphony-V 9.0 will be generally available from DataCore-authorized partners around the world beginning July 2, 2012. For more information, please visit – http://www.datacore.com/storagehypervisor .