DataCore SANsymphony-V Chosen by Derby Supply Chain Solutions

DataCore Software Corporation announced that Derby Supply Chain Solutions has selected
DataCore’s SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor for its storage virtualization
management needs.

The virtual storage platform provides Derby with BC – making the supply chain solutions vendor’s goal of non-stop
business operations a reality.

"The biggest benefit that
we have experienced with SANsymphony-V is BC that has enabled our organization
to consolidate and virtualize the bulk of our server infrastructure,"
stated Joshua Taylor, senior systems administrator at Derby Supply Chain
Solutions. "Prior to embracing
DataCore’s storage hypervisor-based solution for storage virtualization, our
server infrastructure was on aging hardware and was therefore very unreliable.
Our users have definitely experienced much better uptime and continuity than
what they had experienced previously without DataCore."

Beyond the HA, Derby also reports that it has attained a new level of
investment protection and greater utilization of their storage resources – all
because they chose to virtualize their storage the right way, with device independent software-based storage hypervisor SANsymphony-V.

Derby Supply Chain Solutions delivers supply chain solutions for assembly,
packaging, warehousing and distribution to companies of all sizes, including
global enterprises like Whirlpool, GE, Volvo, Mack, Godiva, and more. It is
a complete third party logistics solution, providing its customers with the
ability to streamline their assembly, packaging, warehousing and distribution
processes. Derby works collaboratively with its customers to develop
effective and scalable solutions. The company offers physical
warehousing and logistics services as well as software solutions that enable
customers to view and in some cases, control how their products move through
the supply chain.

According to Taylor, a ‘day in the life’ prior to DataCore was one that
included far too many disparate systems, with data strewn onto almost every
device possible. There was no easy-to-use backup solution, and trying to manage
storage was ‘a nightmare.’ Taylor said the IT system’s lack of redundancy
caused ‘almost daily’ problems at the company, particularly with the aging
hardware that was in place at the time.

"Derby Supply Chain Solutions looked
at other options from EMC and Dell before choosing DataCore,"
commented Taylor. "However, after
researching SANsymphony-V and seeing the cost-to-performance benefits and the
TCO compared to those other solutions, we knew that DataCore was the best
option."

The Mirazon Group LLC, an IT solutions
provider and DataCore partner, understood Derby IT objectives. They implemented DataCore’s storage hypervisor
technology – ensuring that the overall project was a success and
transforming the existing network into the virtualized infrastructure needed.

With SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor, Taylor said that
end users at Derby have experienced a much higher level
of uptime and continuity than was previously available. Because a number of the
servers are legacy servers, Taylor and team are in the process of
phasing these out in favor of newer systems. In order to do so, they have
deployed virtual machines to move systems off legacy servers, without
interruption. The three main VMware ESX hosts that currently support 36 VMs are
running on Dell PowerEdge R805 Servers.

In addition to overall reliability, Taylor praised DataCore’s
storage hypervisor for having the benefits associated with software-as-infrastructure,
particularly ease of implementation and use: "I have seen first-hand the software advantage that DataCore brings to
its users. While perhaps not self-evident until you have the storage
virtualization software deployed, it is very similar to what you get through
server virtualization software by way of freedom and flexibility. Moreover, in
terms of storage management interfaces and management tools I have dealt with
in the past, DataCore’s software-based approach to storage virtualization
through its storage hypervisor is easier to implement and manage than anything
I have been exposed to before. Other interfaces for storage appliances can be
clumsy and non-intuitive. The interface from DataCore makes storage management
much, much easier."