Sanbolic Clustered File System Available for Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V

The new release of Sanbolic, Inc.‘s advanced clustered file system, Melio 2009 R2, is now available as a beta product and offers improved performance, better scalability, and new options for data protection.

This product incorporates several new components designed for customers who will use Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V for IT consolidation, business continuity and datacenter optimization projects. The new lock architecture in the file system adds the ability to support very large numbers of virtual machine hosts accessing virtual machine files on a shared SAN volume with near raw disk performance. Distributed snapshot capability allows snapshots to be created from any host server, and is compatible with any backup software using a standard volume shadow copy service (VSS) client. Melio 2009 R2 beta and Sanbolic’s LaScala clustered volume manager can be used with any physical or virtual Windows Server, and is available as a 120-day evaluation version for Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V release candidate.

Melio FS and LaScala allow logical volumes on SAN storage to be configured and assigned centrally and enable concurrent shared access to SAN volumes from multiple physical or virtual servers. All Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V hosts can access virtual machine files on a shared SAN volume enabling live migration of virtual machines, even for virtual machines with high I/O requirements. Melio FS can also provide shared access to application data on a SAN volume from virtual servers, improving application availability, performance, and scalability. Melio FS and LaScala are fully compatible with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, as well as Windows Server technologies such as Failover Clustering, MPIO, and Active Directory.

Customers can easily install Melio FS and LaScala on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and virtual machines, and the software can be used with any industry standard SAN storage. Sanbolic’s products have no file system or volume size limitations. Storage performance monitoring is integrated into Melio FS, and quality of service can be set on a per virtual machine basis if storage bandwidth is constrained. The snapshot capability provides several unique features taking advantage of the capability of Melio clustered file system. Snapshot can be mounted on any machine in the storage cluster, independent of which machine created the snapshot. There is no limit to the number of snapshots, and there are no preparation or space reserve requirements. Differential snapshots are supported, significantly reducing storage use and I/O performance impact.

"Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V provides features and performance that offer tremendous value for customers trying to optimize datacenter operations," said Dai Vu, director of virtualization solutions marketing, Server and Tools Business at Microsoft Corp. "The new release of Melio FS will offer enterprise customers a high-performance and scalable storage solution."

Sanbolic software currently supports Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.

Sanbolic distributes its product solutions worldwide through a network of distributors, OEMs, VARs and system integrators.