Thin-Provisioning Added to Veritas Storage Foundation

Symantec Corp. announced enhancements to Veritas Storage Foundation that maximize the value of thin-provisioned storage environments by optimizing migrations and enabling storage reclamation. Storage Foundation leverages the industry’s only cross-platform thin-provisioning optimized file system and provides the only online storage migration solution that is thin-aware to help customers capitalize on their existing storage investment and eliminate costs from purchasing new storage. In addition, Symantec is announcing the Veritas Thin Reclamation API, a new API enabling automated space reclamation for thin provisioning storage arrays.

Thin provisioning is a storage array-based technology to efficiently provision storage on demand to applications and maximize storage utilization. However, realizing the full benefit of thin provisioned storage is challenging as many file systems do not use storage capacity efficiently and existing applications cannot be intelligently migrated from traditional storage arrays into thin provisioned arrays. Without intelligent file system and storage integration, there is no way to return excess storage capacity to the storage pool over time, resulting in inefficient use of storage assets. Until today, these limitations have slowed the deployment of thin provisioned storage in the enterprise.

“Organizations are increasingly deploying thin storage arrays in order to improve storage utilization and drive operational efficiency,” said Rohit Ghai, vice president of Symantec’s Storage Foundation Group. “Now for the first time, organizations can broadly deploy thin storage with confidence, reclaiming storage during online migrations and continually optimizing the environment over time with Veritas Storage Foundation and the intelligent integration with thin storage arrays.”

Storage Foundation delivers the industry’s only cross-platform thin-friendly file system which minimizes unnecessary allocation of physical storage. Unlike many other file systems, Storage Foundation does not reserve storage until it is needed – thereby ensuring that thin storage delivers on its promise to leverage existing storage resources. And, because this same file system is available for all major Unix and Linux operating systems, Storage Foundation is at the core of the optimized thin-provisioned storage ecosystem.

“To optimize effective utilization of thin storage, organizations need to think about the broader data center ecosystem, which includes the thin storage arrays and the file systems and volume managers on all of the different servers consuming that storage,” said Noemi Greyzdorf, IDC research manager. “Storage Foundation represents a promising solution to help enterprises maintain an optimized thin environment now and over time.”

Storage Foundation now also includes SmartMove, the industry’s only solution to automatically reclaim unused space during online migrations from traditional storage to thin provisioned storage. It works with all storage arrays offering thin provisioning and supports Windows, Unix and Linux platforms. This intelligent migration prevents superfluous allocation of storage during the migration process, enabling organizations to reclaim unused space and significantly improve storage utilization without taking applications offline.

As a result of its continued partnership with storage partners, Symantec is also introducing the Veritas Thin Reclamation API that storage hardware vendors can leverage to enable granular, online reclamation of unused storage over time so that thin provisioned storage can remain thin. This key innovative technology enables the server and storage array to work together to continually, and automatically optimize storage utilization. The Thin Reclamation API leverages VxFS intelligence and effectively makes storage reclamation transparent to the application, server and storage so that unused storage is easily and automatically returned to the free storage pool in the array.

“3PAR shares with Symantec a commitment to reducing data center complexity and improving storage administration flexibility,” said David Scott, president and CEO of 3PAR “As the first partner to leverage Symantec’s Veritas Thin Reclamation API, 3PAR is not only demonstrating its leadership in the thin storage market but also providing customers the tools they need to maximize their storage investments today and into the future.”

“Migrating to thin storage without waste is now a reality,” said Sean Moser, vice president of software at Hitachi Data Systems. “The ability to combine Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning with Veritas Storage Foundation SmartMove now enables customers to migrate from thick to thin storage and automatically maximize storage utilization without application downtime.”

“We anticipate that our customers who use Symantec’s Veritas Storage Foundation SmartMove with the thin provisioning feature of the HP StorageWorks XP disk arrays will experience easier management, outstanding storage efficiency and reduced total cost of ownership. This joint Symantec and HP solution will help customers get the most value from their enterprise XP storage investment,” said Hewlett Packard’s James R. Wilson, XP product manager.

Pricing and Availability
Veritas Storage Foundation is now generally available with estimated pricing starting at $695 per server.