Advanced Site Recovery, New Component of DataCore Portfolio

DataCore Software has launched its ground-breaking Advanced Site Recovery (ASR) solution for virtual and physical IT infrastructures. This new component of DataCore’s comprehensive business continuity portfolio enables businesses to embrace Distributed Disaster Recovery (D-DR) that allows organizations to cost-effectively spread disaster recovery (DR) responsibilities across several smaller sites. ASR builds on DataCore’s universal storage virtualization software to move IT operations from a central site to one or more distributed contingency locations – and back again. Additionally, the solution makes no distinction between physical and virtual servers, unifying their DR operations in a common, automated process. DataCore’s Advanced Site Recovery solution can be seen at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. 

“DataCore’s ground-breaking Advanced Site Recovery solution enables users to experience full site level recovery in a way that is more flexible and powerful than anything else in the marketplace,” commented James Price, vice president of product and channel marketing, DataCore Software. “DataCore ASR delivers site recovery in a new and industry-pioneering way. That is exactly why we are calling it Advanced Site Recovery.”
 
Taking machines from one site and replicating them to another site before a calamity unfolds is not new. But buyer beware. Many other disaster recovery products are limiting in that they assume recovery, from one environment to an identical or very similar environment or they support only a subset of the infrastructure. Often physical servers are not supported or require a separate solution from applications and virtual servers. DataCore ASR enables users to execute site recovery operations in a way that is fundamentally different from existing solutions in the marketplace today by bringing the data center together into single solution.
 
“Customers of all sizes need high-value IT solutions that can optimize and protect IT operations and make IT more efficient,” said Dai Vu, director of virtualization solutions marketing, Server and Tools Business at Microsoft Corp. “Customers want to manage their virtual and physical IT infrastructure and applications with a common and familiar toolset, and the same applies to their disaster recovery solutions. We’re happy to work with DataCore to help customers increase value and efficiency when it comes to disaster recovery.”
 
DataCore ASR
a more flexible and powerful approach to DR
ASR is a key component of DataCore’s comprehensive business continuity portfolio. It automates and radically simplifies how one or more, smaller, remote IT facilities take over workloads from a central site in the event of a disaster or scheduled outage. Rather than attempt to fully recreate the central datacenter at another major site, ASR can distribute responsibilities for keeping the business going among a few remote offices and branch offices (ROBO) based on business and operational capabilities. ASR also takes care of returning control of the workloads to the central IT site when the main IT center is deemed capable of accepting them.
 
DataCore ASR: Solution Highlights

• Physical and virtual – Rather than address a subset of the IT environment, DataCore covers both virtual and physical servers – without increasing the workload of applications, hosts, or virtual servers. The solution integrates virtual and physical servers, unifying their recovery or failover in a common, automated process.
• Distributed Disaster Recovery (D-DR) – DataCore ASR allows the system administrator to execute a DR plan from multiple sites in a one-to-many or many-to-many relationship.
• Storage flexibility – DataCore ASR does not depend on duplicating expensive equipment offsite, such as top-of-the-line disk arrays and specialized networking gear.  
• DataCore ASR is bi-directional – A lot of the current site recovery approaches assume a one-directional relationship, meaning they assume failure at one site and send all the data to the secondary site, without working through just how that data is brought back to the primary site. DataCore ASR has the ability to send the VMs and the storage to a remote site as well as to recover it from the remote site and bring it all back to the primary site. Having central site restoration built-in ensures rapid restoration of the central IT site from the widely dispersed branches through ongoing bi-directional replication.

Market Impact
DataCore ASR allows organizations to leverage readily available IT assets between different sites, to minimize or eliminate business disruptions and data loss attributed to planned and unforeseen site outages.
 
“Unlike some other site recovery approaches that are limited to just virtual machines,  DataCore ASR enables both physical and virtual servers to be protected across multiple sites,” stated George Crump, president, Storage Switzerland. "This advanced approach to DR – one that encompasses distributed disaster recovery, is an important milestone and I am happy to see companies like DataCore reaching it."
 
ASR Pricing and Availability
Advance Site Recovery software is available as of July 13, 2009 through DataCore ASR-certified implementation partners. The ASR software for DataCore’s storage virtualization starts at $2,000 per site.