Datacore to Integrate of SAN and NAS Virtualization

DataCore Software celebrates its ten-year anniversary at VMworld Europe (Palais Des Festivals, Cannes, February 26-28) with some impressive announcements. At the show, the company will announce a number of new storage virtualization solutions all ready to run on VMware virtual machines, the highlight being SANharmony, the first virtualization platform integrating management of both NAS and SAN storage. In addition, DataCore will be announcing the enhanced Virtual Infrastructure Foundation PLUS (VIF+) package, which now supports even greater capacity, delivers snapshot technology and offers fiber channel support together with advanced thin provisioning and iSCSI support. Further announcements will include a range of new DataCore featured-packed high availability and disaster recovery solution packages based on its SANmelody and SANsymphony platforms. All the above offering the best out-of-the-box experience on the market, whereby any of these DataCore solution can run on any physical or virtual machine of choice: Intel/AMD hardware servers or blades or on virtual machines from Microsoft, Oracle, Citrix, Sun, Virtual Iron and of course VMware VMs.
 
 
SANharmony – New Virtualization II Platform that integrates SAN and NAS:
DataCore will announce a new framework that provides all aspects of storage control and management from within a simple to use Windows environment. SANharmony extends DataCore’s Virtualization II programme by integrating a new class of storage applications with the virtualization layer – harmonizing storage with virtual servers and enabling DataCore services and IO performance acceleration to be applied to not only the SAN storage but to all storage in the network (i.e. enabling Microsoft NAS to benefit from DataCore’s performance and advanced storage capabilities). The first new storage applications announced with SANharmony are DataCore’s thin provisioning and high-speed caching functions for NAS volumes. From this significant announcement DataCore will follow with other solutions that enable the underlying SAN and NAS storage to seamlessly integrate with Virtual Servers. DataCore will start shipping SANharmony in Q2 2008.
 
Virtual Infrastructure Foundation PLUS (VIF+):
The enhanced Virtual Infrastructure Foundation Package now supports more capacity, delivers snapshot technology and offers fiber channel support in addition to advanced thin provisioning and iSCSI support. The new and improved Virtual Infrastructure Foundation (VIF) package will be marketed and sold as Virtual Infrastructure Foundation PLUS (VIF+). VIF+ takes the original Virtual Infrastructure Foundation to new heights. Just like the original VIF, VIF+ includes thin provisioning, iSCSI support, SANmotion data migration technology and performance caching. However, instead of just supporting 3TBs, VIF+ raises the game to support 4TBs. It also includes snapshot technology as well as fiber channel support. This new package sells for under £1500 delivering unmatched SAN functionality.
 
Portable, Feature-Packed VM Starter SAN:
At the entry level, DataCore has announced a starter SAN, running on VMware, Microsoft, Oracle, SUN, and Citrix XenServer virtualization platforms, hardware servers and blades. This feature-packed version of DataCore’s SANmelody comes bundled and ready-to-use. Priced around £2,400 (per SAN server), the VM Starter SAN bundle includes auto-allocating thin provisioning storage support, SANmotion data migration technology, high performance caching software, snapshots for fast disk backups, auto failover/failback data protection via synchronous network mirroring as well as remote site disaster recovery support through asynchronous IP mirror replication. The DataCore VM Starter SAN provides the simplest and most affordable way on the market to get started, fully realizing the cost savings and productivity benefits of a fully featured, virtual SAN.
 
DataCore Virtual SAN Solutions Run “Hardware-Free” on Virtual Machines:
Rounding up the bill of multiple announcements is the news that DataCore’s storage virtualisation and management platforms SANmelody, SANsymphony, and Traveller for continuous data protection can now be implemented ‘hardware free’ on virtual machines in combination with today’s leading  server virtualization platforms – VMware, Microsoft, Citrix, Xensource, Virtual Iron. As virtual SAN servers, the solutions provide a new level of consolidation and flexibility never previously experienced.
 
"Virtualization now represents the major paradigm shift in IT and storage. Storage is becoming increasingly a software topic and with DataCore it has become an application like any other", commented Christian Hagen, VP Europe, DataCore Software. "Our latest enhancements go one step further: they virtualise NAS and SAN storage on virtual servers. Storage server solutions running on virtual machines (VMs) shift the solution away from hardware-based storage solutions towards flexible, hardware-independent, software-based, storage solutions and infrastructures. VMworld Europe is a brilliant platform to inform users about this innovative IT concept."
 

DataCore Software