New Capabilities for DataCore SANmelody

DataCore Software announced several enhancements to its SANmelody storage virtualization solution.

The new features are aimed at small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) that are eager to upgrade their disk subsystems and storage network infrastructure, but fear the broad business disruptions that such changes typically bring.
 
The new features, now shipping, in SANmelody 3.0 enable:

• Non-disruptive Substitution – Replace storage arrays in the background: Copies the contents of a designated storage array (or individual drive) to the unit that will replace it while applications continue to use the logical volumes.  The new array (or drive) transparently takes over once it matches the contents of the original drives so that the older drives can be taken offline without impacting users.  
• Redundant Pathing – Configure network paths between storage virtualization nodes: These paths may be diversely routed to ensure that if one primary network connection is broken or taken offline, synchronous mirroring between nodes will continue uninterrupted over the alternate connection.
• Prioritized Recovery – Prioritize resynchronization of mirrored disks: Ensures that the most critical, volumes are resynchronized first when a node or its storage is taken off-line during an upgrade or unplanned outage.
• Group Snapshot and Clone Command – Synchronize online snapshots across inter-dependent volumes: Coordinates multiple snapshots to occur at the same time across a group of related volumes. This ensures point-time synchronization of file systems and application data that reside on different disks.  It ensures that clones created on new equipment are an exact replica of their predecessor.
• Content Migration – Relocate Active Drives into Virtual Storage Pool: Enables existing drives formatted with NTFS, Unix, Linux and other file systems to be incorporated into the SANmelody storage pool. These physical drives are first un-mounted from the application servers where they were once active, and reconnected behind a SANmelody node.  The SANmelody node will then act as an intermediary between the application server and these drives. To take full advantage of SANmelody advanced virtualization features, their contents may be copied to virtual disks using snapshots or synchronous mirroring. The relocated drives can then be wiped clean and included in the physical storage pool as additional capacity, or they may be decommissioned.
• FCoE Connectivity – Access Fibre Channel storage pool via the LAN switching infrastructure: Application servers and other storage consumers can access SANmelody nodes equipped with Fibre Channel SAN connections using their Ethernet Network Interface Cards (NICs). This capability takes advantage of the new Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) protocol and FCoE-compliant switches.

New Features
Suited to Physical and Virtual Server Environments
DataCore Software maximizes the value from IT assets and boosts business productivity. At the same time, DataCore technology helps users get the most out of their investments with virtual infrastructure and virtual servers by eliminating the inflexibility of physical storage. SANmelody software has been tested and optimized for use with VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer virtualization platforms, as well as Intel/AMD based hardware servers and blades.
 
Availability
These SANmelody 3.0 features are available now. SANmelody customers with current active maintenance contracts may take advantage of the new features by downloading them from the DataCore Technical Support web site.