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Tuesday, 18 January 2011
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Monday, 17 January 2011
SANsymphony 7.0 Selected as 2010 Products of the Year finalists for Storage Management
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid5_gci1525938,00.html
Many will look back on 2010 as the year of big storage acquisitions, but the wheeling and dealing was only part of the story. Data storage vendors turned out a slew of ingenious enterprise data storage products to address some of the key issues users have been grappling with in their storage shops.
From nearly 200 entries, the judges of Storage magazine's and SearchStorage.com's 2010 Products of the Year awards have selected and announced their finalists.
Storage management tools: 2010 Products of the Year finalists
Jan 2011 | Storage magazine and SearchStorage.com Contributors
Here are the eight finalists in the storage management tools category in Storage magazine's and SearchStorage.com's 2010 Products of the Year competition. The category covers storage resource management (SRM) and SAN management software, performance monitoring, file systems, volume management, virtualization software and security software. Finalists are listed below.
DataCore Software Corp. SANsymphony 7.0
DataCore SANsymphony 7.0 storage virtualization software adds non-stop high availability (HA) to let users do maintenance, upgrades and expansion, and address system failures without disrupting applications. Also new are support for Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), "advanced site recovery' (ASR) to enable IT shops to fail over physical and virtual servers to multiple remote and branch offices, and efficient space reclamation for thinly provisioned storage.
Friday, 7 January 2011
The Next Big Industry Push is VDI
Check out the latest post form Jon Toigo at: http://www.drunkendata.com/?p=3264
…One of the problems I have been detecting in the literature is the same issue we saw in server virtualization: the gotchas of hidden cost. In addition to software and operating system licensing fee structures, the industry will need to sort out the enabling software for virtualizing desktops themselves. But the really big cost is — you guessed it — storage.
I have read with amusement and disdain the papers by leading storage hardware vendors stating that, from a storage cost perspective, you can stand up 5000 desktop images on their array for a fraction of what a physical desktop costs. They usually tout $100 desktops versus $400 physical PCs. Big cost savings there, right?
Not really. The reason why they use 5000 virtual PCs to achieve their groundbreaking cost reductions is that it is the only way they can amortize their box of disk drives and value add software. NOBODY IS GOING TO VIRTUALIZE 5000 DESKTOPS!!!
Sorry for shouting. I guess there are some companies out there with that many PCs. However, the truth is that VDI will likely advance incrementally — tens or maybe a couple of hundred PCs at a time. This is especially true at the outset of the trend, with early adopters and experimenters.
So, the truth of most of these claims that 5000 desktop images can be stored for a quarter of the price of an equal number of physical PCs is quite self serving — and, more importantly, falls apart in the real world.
The question shouldn’t be how many VDIs can I stack up to amortize my storage investment, it should be, how much cost can I take out of distributed desktops if I virtualize a few dozen? The benchmarks of the EMCs, NetApps, et al never go there.
But DataCore Software does. In case you missed their announcement today, here’s the news — at least the preliminary bits that were released today.
My friends at DataCore have just completed what I regard as the first meaningful benchmark on the cost of desktop virtualization from a storage hosting perspective. I like what Ziya, George, Bettye and the gang have done — a lot! In fact, I thought it was important enough to fly down there with a camera and shoot a video interview on the subject. They have posted the videos to their site but I will be placing them at the C-4 Summit in Cyberspace by end of week.
Here is an extract of what I just wrote about it for Storage Magazine in the Netherlands…
Late 2010 saw a succession of “proof of concept” papers coming from the storage brand name vendors touting cost models for VDI that were a fraction of the acquisition price of physical PCs. One three-letter vendor boasted that a 5000 PC environment could be effectively hosted on its storage array for roughly $50 US per box.
Once you get past the wow factor, however, you quickly realize that the storage vendor’s benchmark is rather self-serving. The benchmark ignores the cost of desktop OS and application software licensing, hypervisor licensing, server hardware, network enhancements, and storage cabling requirements to focus narrowly on the cost per VDI using the vendor’s storage gear. Moreover, a business will need to stack up a full 5000 virtual PCs in order to amortize the cost of the storage rig and achieve the cost-per-virtual-desktop advanced by the vendor.
Truth be told, virtually no one is going to virtualize 5000 desktops all at once – not even the large insurance companies or government research labs that actually have desktops in those numbers. It is more likely that companies will tread cautiously when pursuing a desktop virtualization strategy, virtualizing only a handful of machines at a time so that the real cost and efficacy of the strategy can be clarified. Until that happens, buying a huge EMC, IBM, HDS, etc. storage rig to support 5000 virtual PCs at sub-$100 each will not return its investment. In fact, companies pursuing this course will likely find out the hard way that the easiest path to doubling or tripling desktop computing costs is to virtualize their desktops on expensive infrastructure.
I wish everyone would read CTO Ziya Aral of DataCore Software’s wonderful benchmark on VDI and storage. His goals were not to amortize a specific storage rig (DataCore sells storage virtualization that works just as well with Joe’s JBODs as it does with VMAX or USP). He wanted simply to understand the capacity and performance requirements for desktop virtualization – especially in the 100 to 500 virtual machine range that will be much more common in the real world.
DataCore Software demonstrated pretty persuasively, and without trying terribly hard, that you could stand up that range of VDIs on a virtualized storage platform for about $35 per desktop. They also discovered that the low cost could be maintained as you grew infrastructure using storage and servers configured as part of a star topology – stars later serving as a building block for scaling. That price included all of the redundancy and failover capabilities touted as “enterprise class” hosting by the brand name storage rig vendors – leveraging only the secret sauce of DataCore read/writable snap shots created from virtualizing underlying storage.
There were many non-intuitively-obvious findings in DataCore’s research that I will only summarize here. For one, a Microsoft Windows 7 machine will boot in less than 198K of memory – so there is no real advantage to throwing a ton of RAM at the system. For another, most desktops require very little physical storage: so, when you begin doing VDI, you need to stop thinking as though you are deploying a physical PC with parameters dictated by “boundary conditions” (i.e., configuring according to what the most data intensive application or user might require in terms of storage capacity).
Bottom line: DataCore’s benchmark proves that it doesn’t require an overpriced “enterprise class” storage rig to virtualize desktops in a cost-effective way. All that it really requires is common sense and storage virtualization software, preferably from DataCore Software, which [will shortly release a new and revamped version of its flagship storage virtualization wares].
We are off to a great start in 2011. Maybe DataCore’s research will cajole the hardware guys to get real about their cost estimation around VDI. For now, a sub-$35 price tag is pretty compelling.
…One of the problems I have been detecting in the literature is the same issue we saw in server virtualization: the gotchas of hidden cost. In addition to software and operating system licensing fee structures, the industry will need to sort out the enabling software for virtualizing desktops themselves. But the really big cost is — you guessed it — storage.
I have read with amusement and disdain the papers by leading storage hardware vendors stating that, from a storage cost perspective, you can stand up 5000 desktop images on their array for a fraction of what a physical desktop costs. They usually tout $100 desktops versus $400 physical PCs. Big cost savings there, right?
Not really. The reason why they use 5000 virtual PCs to achieve their groundbreaking cost reductions is that it is the only way they can amortize their box of disk drives and value add software. NOBODY IS GOING TO VIRTUALIZE 5000 DESKTOPS!!!
Sorry for shouting. I guess there are some companies out there with that many PCs. However, the truth is that VDI will likely advance incrementally — tens or maybe a couple of hundred PCs at a time. This is especially true at the outset of the trend, with early adopters and experimenters.
So, the truth of most of these claims that 5000 desktop images can be stored for a quarter of the price of an equal number of physical PCs is quite self serving — and, more importantly, falls apart in the real world.
The question shouldn’t be how many VDIs can I stack up to amortize my storage investment, it should be, how much cost can I take out of distributed desktops if I virtualize a few dozen? The benchmarks of the EMCs, NetApps, et al never go there.
But DataCore Software does. In case you missed their announcement today, here’s the news — at least the preliminary bits that were released today.
My friends at DataCore have just completed what I regard as the first meaningful benchmark on the cost of desktop virtualization from a storage hosting perspective. I like what Ziya, George, Bettye and the gang have done — a lot! In fact, I thought it was important enough to fly down there with a camera and shoot a video interview on the subject. They have posted the videos to their site but I will be placing them at the C-4 Summit in Cyberspace by end of week.
Here is an extract of what I just wrote about it for Storage Magazine in the Netherlands…
Late 2010 saw a succession of “proof of concept” papers coming from the storage brand name vendors touting cost models for VDI that were a fraction of the acquisition price of physical PCs. One three-letter vendor boasted that a 5000 PC environment could be effectively hosted on its storage array for roughly $50 US per box.
Once you get past the wow factor, however, you quickly realize that the storage vendor’s benchmark is rather self-serving. The benchmark ignores the cost of desktop OS and application software licensing, hypervisor licensing, server hardware, network enhancements, and storage cabling requirements to focus narrowly on the cost per VDI using the vendor’s storage gear. Moreover, a business will need to stack up a full 5000 virtual PCs in order to amortize the cost of the storage rig and achieve the cost-per-virtual-desktop advanced by the vendor.
Truth be told, virtually no one is going to virtualize 5000 desktops all at once – not even the large insurance companies or government research labs that actually have desktops in those numbers. It is more likely that companies will tread cautiously when pursuing a desktop virtualization strategy, virtualizing only a handful of machines at a time so that the real cost and efficacy of the strategy can be clarified. Until that happens, buying a huge EMC, IBM, HDS, etc. storage rig to support 5000 virtual PCs at sub-$100 each will not return its investment. In fact, companies pursuing this course will likely find out the hard way that the easiest path to doubling or tripling desktop computing costs is to virtualize their desktops on expensive infrastructure.
I wish everyone would read CTO Ziya Aral of DataCore Software’s wonderful benchmark on VDI and storage. His goals were not to amortize a specific storage rig (DataCore sells storage virtualization that works just as well with Joe’s JBODs as it does with VMAX or USP). He wanted simply to understand the capacity and performance requirements for desktop virtualization – especially in the 100 to 500 virtual machine range that will be much more common in the real world.
DataCore Software demonstrated pretty persuasively, and without trying terribly hard, that you could stand up that range of VDIs on a virtualized storage platform for about $35 per desktop. They also discovered that the low cost could be maintained as you grew infrastructure using storage and servers configured as part of a star topology – stars later serving as a building block for scaling. That price included all of the redundancy and failover capabilities touted as “enterprise class” hosting by the brand name storage rig vendors – leveraging only the secret sauce of DataCore read/writable snap shots created from virtualizing underlying storage.
There were many non-intuitively-obvious findings in DataCore’s research that I will only summarize here. For one, a Microsoft Windows 7 machine will boot in less than 198K of memory – so there is no real advantage to throwing a ton of RAM at the system. For another, most desktops require very little physical storage: so, when you begin doing VDI, you need to stop thinking as though you are deploying a physical PC with parameters dictated by “boundary conditions” (i.e., configuring according to what the most data intensive application or user might require in terms of storage capacity).
Bottom line: DataCore’s benchmark proves that it doesn’t require an overpriced “enterprise class” storage rig to virtualize desktops in a cost-effective way. All that it really requires is common sense and storage virtualization software, preferably from DataCore Software, which [will shortly release a new and revamped version of its flagship storage virtualization wares].
We are off to a great start in 2011. Maybe DataCore’s research will cajole the hardware guys to get real about their cost estimation around VDI. For now, a sub-$35 price tag is pretty compelling.
Thursday, 6 January 2011
Interesting Technologies that could come of age in 2011. Storage Virtualization Software #1
http://www.storagetopics.com/2011/01/interesting-technologies-that-could.html
In my last blog I noted that the promise of the New Year encourages a flurry of predictions each trying to foretell next year’s technology winners and losers. Just as with New Year’s resolutions, I have tried to avoid engaging in this end of year ritual despite my last blog that may have created a contrary impression...To me interesting predictions are those that reach beyond the safety of conservatism. Being bullish is risky but what is the point of predicting the obvious. So in the spirit of sticking myself out there on the proverbial limb my selection of technologies to watch in 2011 are; Storage Virtualization Software, Cloud Storage Gateways and Autonomic Software Architectures.
#1. Storage Virtualization Software: Not what is traditionally thought of as storage virtualization; for example HP’s EVA or a 3Par array. Storage virtualization software is a hardware independent software product, designed to deliver storage virtualization that replicates the many advantages VMware, Microsoft’s HyperV and Citrix et al has delivered to the server world.
How? By looking at what is traditionally consider to be platform based controller functions and physical storage virtualization as a portable software program that is abstracted from the physical layer and hence hardware independent. Very interesting concept and one that I anticipate will generate some interesting responses from the traditional storage vendors.
Companies to watch; DataCore, a 10+ year old company that could have a break out year in 2011, and for those interested in content addressable storage, Caringo.
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
The Software Advantage for Storage Virtualization: DataCore Software Sets the Stage for Virtualization Leadership in 2011
DataCore Software, an early pioneer and now a leading provider of software-based virtualization solutions empowering storage, today highlighted what it considers points of emphasis for 2011 in terms of furthering the promise of virtualization.
The promise of virtualization will be further realized this year. Software-based storage virtualization will take its rightful place by making storage anonymous within virtual infrastructures. Equally important, a number of trends, strategic drivers and software architectures will emerge to make a new level of flexibility and scale both practical and cost-effective to achieve. The most significant driver will be the simple realization that only a software-based infrastructure can truly deliver the necessary advantages to make virtualization and Clouds a reality because software can abstract itself from device specific limitations, provide portability across platforms, and endure beyond the life of underlying hardware platforms that come and go over time.
Compelling Benefits: The "Software Advantage" and Anonymous Storage
According to DataCore Chairman and Co-founder Ziya Aral, "The entire storage virtualization angle was real simple - abstract yourself from the hardware. DataCore was founded on the belief that storage controllers in general and storage virtualization in particular were essentially ‘software programs.' For us, virtualization was driven by a very simple need to make a portable software program to do disk storage and run it on any platform."
This sentiment is both echoed and further emphasized by DataCore's President, CEO and Co-founder George Teixeira, "From a business standpoint, the total cost of ownership and the payback on investment of a pure ‘software infrastructure,' where you pay once for intelligent software to manage, protect and get more from your storage assets - as they come and go from generation to generation and brand to brand - is a value proposition that is as compelling as it is inevitable."
Bottom-line: A software based storage virtualization infrastructure can live within the same abstraction level as virtual servers and virtual desktops and bring along the same type of benefits that we have seen from these movements in regards to making storage hardware brands largely irrelevant - or anonymous - to users and applications, therefore simplifying management, removing storage task complexity, speeding up response and provisioning times and increasing overall utilization and flexibility.
The "software advantage" becomes more obvious when you consider the many scenarios it works in and the many shapes it takes and will take in the future. Because DataCore software is portable, it can run on a virtual machine (VM) or on a multitude of physical servers. It not only virtualizes and manages storage, but can coexist along with the server hypervisor in the virtualization layer, providing many possibilities to solve real world and real budget challenges. Hardware simply can't do that.
Software-based storage virtualization has been lauded as a "game changer" in a number of reports, including: InformationWeek's ‘Storage Anonymous' Cover Story.
DataCore's Future Directions for Storage Virtualization
"The whole idea of DataCore and our vision was that if you could move the software program from the constraints and boundaries of the physical platforms and take it to a modern programming environment, then it would be possible to do with software what had been done manually to that point - that's storage virtualization," explains Aral.
Virtual desktops (vDesktops) are an excellent example that highlights the need for a new model for storage. The major challenge for vDesktops is that SANs are often implemented with large and costly storage controllers and complex external storage networks. While these have the advantage of achieving reasonable scalability, they introduce a very large threshold cost to virtual desktop implementations. To overcome this high capital cost burden, hardware vendors typically tout the economics of deploying several thousand vDesktops. The real problem in this case is not in scaling up to "thousands" of vDesktops but in scaling them down to practical configurations. It barely needs mentioning that this must occur without radically spiking costs at the low end and also without forgoing the SAN feature set which assures portability, availability, and data redundancy. Otherwise, the very benefits of vDesktops are compromised.
DataCore has done extensive benchmarking to understand the economics of vDesktops and has been able to configure high-availability configurations supporting a few hundred instead of "thousands" of vDesktops, and at a cost per desktop of less than one tenth of what was previously reported. In addition, new topologies allow the scaling of such configurations to "thousands" if that is what is required. Based on these initial findings, DataCore will make a significant impact on removing storage costs as a primary barrier to virtual desktop deployments. DataCore will be posting a series of Virtual Desktops Benchmark Reports in 2011.
Virtual desktops have one element in common with the other major computing movement of our day: cloud computing. Both technologies promise to deploy very large numbers of "machines" of the same class. This creates the opportunity to present one additional level of virtualization and to "divide and conquer" the problem which is otherwise daunting for its scale. What if, instead of attempting to manage hundreds or thousands of virtual machines discretely, one could divide them into arbitrary groups or sub-units and then manage a far smaller number of sub-units? This will also be the future direction of our work, impacting not only vDesktops and cloud computing but also the organization of storage itself.
Stay tuned to DataCore in 2011 for more details.
Learn More - Supporting Materials
Ziya Aral discusses: The DataCore Product Vision, Virtual Desktops and Benchmark Findings.
George Teixeira shares his "Perspectives on the Shifting Economies of Storage Virtualization Software, Private Clouds and Virtual Desktops" - DataCore CEO Perspectives: 2011.
The promise of virtualization will be further realized this year. Software-based storage virtualization will take its rightful place by making storage anonymous within virtual infrastructures. Equally important, a number of trends, strategic drivers and software architectures will emerge to make a new level of flexibility and scale both practical and cost-effective to achieve. The most significant driver will be the simple realization that only a software-based infrastructure can truly deliver the necessary advantages to make virtualization and Clouds a reality because software can abstract itself from device specific limitations, provide portability across platforms, and endure beyond the life of underlying hardware platforms that come and go over time.
Compelling Benefits: The "Software Advantage" and Anonymous Storage
According to DataCore Chairman and Co-founder Ziya Aral, "The entire storage virtualization angle was real simple - abstract yourself from the hardware. DataCore was founded on the belief that storage controllers in general and storage virtualization in particular were essentially ‘software programs.' For us, virtualization was driven by a very simple need to make a portable software program to do disk storage and run it on any platform."
This sentiment is both echoed and further emphasized by DataCore's President, CEO and Co-founder George Teixeira, "From a business standpoint, the total cost of ownership and the payback on investment of a pure ‘software infrastructure,' where you pay once for intelligent software to manage, protect and get more from your storage assets - as they come and go from generation to generation and brand to brand - is a value proposition that is as compelling as it is inevitable."
Bottom-line: A software based storage virtualization infrastructure can live within the same abstraction level as virtual servers and virtual desktops and bring along the same type of benefits that we have seen from these movements in regards to making storage hardware brands largely irrelevant - or anonymous - to users and applications, therefore simplifying management, removing storage task complexity, speeding up response and provisioning times and increasing overall utilization and flexibility.
The "software advantage" becomes more obvious when you consider the many scenarios it works in and the many shapes it takes and will take in the future. Because DataCore software is portable, it can run on a virtual machine (VM) or on a multitude of physical servers. It not only virtualizes and manages storage, but can coexist along with the server hypervisor in the virtualization layer, providing many possibilities to solve real world and real budget challenges. Hardware simply can't do that.
Software-based storage virtualization has been lauded as a "game changer" in a number of reports, including: InformationWeek's ‘Storage Anonymous' Cover Story.
DataCore's Future Directions for Storage Virtualization
"The whole idea of DataCore and our vision was that if you could move the software program from the constraints and boundaries of the physical platforms and take it to a modern programming environment, then it would be possible to do with software what had been done manually to that point - that's storage virtualization," explains Aral.
Virtual desktops (vDesktops) are an excellent example that highlights the need for a new model for storage. The major challenge for vDesktops is that SANs are often implemented with large and costly storage controllers and complex external storage networks. While these have the advantage of achieving reasonable scalability, they introduce a very large threshold cost to virtual desktop implementations. To overcome this high capital cost burden, hardware vendors typically tout the economics of deploying several thousand vDesktops. The real problem in this case is not in scaling up to "thousands" of vDesktops but in scaling them down to practical configurations. It barely needs mentioning that this must occur without radically spiking costs at the low end and also without forgoing the SAN feature set which assures portability, availability, and data redundancy. Otherwise, the very benefits of vDesktops are compromised.
DataCore has done extensive benchmarking to understand the economics of vDesktops and has been able to configure high-availability configurations supporting a few hundred instead of "thousands" of vDesktops, and at a cost per desktop of less than one tenth of what was previously reported. In addition, new topologies allow the scaling of such configurations to "thousands" if that is what is required. Based on these initial findings, DataCore will make a significant impact on removing storage costs as a primary barrier to virtual desktop deployments. DataCore will be posting a series of Virtual Desktops Benchmark Reports in 2011.
Virtual desktops have one element in common with the other major computing movement of our day: cloud computing. Both technologies promise to deploy very large numbers of "machines" of the same class. This creates the opportunity to present one additional level of virtualization and to "divide and conquer" the problem which is otherwise daunting for its scale. What if, instead of attempting to manage hundreds or thousands of virtual machines discretely, one could divide them into arbitrary groups or sub-units and then manage a far smaller number of sub-units? This will also be the future direction of our work, impacting not only vDesktops and cloud computing but also the organization of storage itself.
Stay tuned to DataCore in 2011 for more details.
Learn More - Supporting Materials
Ziya Aral discusses: The DataCore Product Vision, Virtual Desktops and Benchmark Findings.
George Teixeira shares his "Perspectives on the Shifting Economies of Storage Virtualization Software, Private Clouds and Virtual Desktops" - DataCore CEO Perspectives: 2011.
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
DataCore Software: 2011 Perspectives on the Shifting Economies of Storage Virtualization Software, Private Clouds and Virtual Desktops
"The business return on investment of a pure ‘software infrastructure,' where you pay once for intelligent software to manage, protect and get more from your storage assets - as they come and go from generation to generation and brand to brand - is a value proposition that is as compelling as it is inevitable."- George Teixeira, President and CEO, DataCore Software
Read the top 5 predictions for 2011 from DataCore Software at: http://vmblog.com/archive/2010/12/16/datacore-2011-perspectives-on-the-shifting-economies-of-storage-virtualization-software-private-clouds-and-virtual-desktops.aspx
Read the top 5 predictions for 2011 from DataCore Software at: http://vmblog.com/archive/2010/12/16/datacore-2011-perspectives-on-the-shifting-economies-of-storage-virtualization-software-private-clouds-and-virtual-desktops.aspx
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Top 10 Ways to Reduce Storage Costs - Software Based Storage Virtualization
http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/management/article.php/3908676/Top-10-Ways-to-Trim-Storage-Costs.htm
Software Virtualization
There are many ways to virtualize storage. In some cases, the vendor suggests throwing away old hardware to buy a brand new virtualization array. A cheaper way is to leave legacy disk in place and incorporate it into a shared storage pool using software-based virtualization.
“With software-based storage virtualization, you can take full advantage of disk resources already in place before you spend any money on additional capacity,” said Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing, DataCore Software.
Software Virtualization
There are many ways to virtualize storage. In some cases, the vendor suggests throwing away old hardware to buy a brand new virtualization array. A cheaper way is to leave legacy disk in place and incorporate it into a shared storage pool using software-based virtualization.
“With software-based storage virtualization, you can take full advantage of disk resources already in place before you spend any money on additional capacity,” said Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing, DataCore Software.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
InformationWeek Landmark Report on Storage Virtualization: How To Break Free From Tier 1 SAN Vendors
We've all grown comfortable with the server virtualization model, where you buy intelligent software and run your choice of hardware. Why should storage be any different? It shouldn't, and a number of vendors are providing the means to finally sever this bond. By offering flexible, standards-based storage virtualization and management software that will run on any x86 platform, DataCore, FalconStor and others extend a tantalizing promise: Pay once for intelligent software and run it on the hardware of your choice. Get the software virtualization layer in place, and the possibilities are endless...
http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/virtualization/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228000296
http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/virtualization/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228000296
Monday, 29 November 2010
Top 10 ways to trim storage costs
http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/management/article.php/3908676/Top-10-Ways-to-Trim-Storage-Costs.htm
Software Virtualization
There are many ways to virtualize storage. In some cases, the vendor suggests throwing away old hardware to buy a brand new virtualization array. A cheaper way is to leave legacy disk in place and incorporate it into a shared storage pool using software-based virtualization.
“With software-based storage virtualization, you can take full advantage of disk resources already in place before you spend any money on additional capacity,” said Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing, DataCore Software.
Software Virtualization
There are many ways to virtualize storage. In some cases, the vendor suggests throwing away old hardware to buy a brand new virtualization array. A cheaper way is to leave legacy disk in place and incorporate it into a shared storage pool using software-based virtualization.
“With software-based storage virtualization, you can take full advantage of disk resources already in place before you spend any money on additional capacity,” said Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing, DataCore Software.
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Virtualization Review SuperCast: The Time to Virtualize Storage is NOW!
In this FREE supercast event, now available on demand, learn why storage virtualization is quickly moving from nice-to-have to need-to-have status and how to successfully deploy and optimize virtual environments.
Title: The Time to Virtualize Storage is NOW
Keynote: Jon Toigo, CEO Toigo Partners International, Chairman Data Management Institute
Storage expert Jon Toigo is a columnist for Enterprise Systems and contributing writer for Virtualization Review. He is a consultant, blogger and author of 15 books on business technology, disaster recovery and data storage.
Join industry leaders for a free supercast designed to help you understand the growing need and value of virtualized storage, as well as tips and strategies for implementation and optimization.
Featured Presentations include:
Secrets to 100% Uptime in a Virtualized Environment by DataCore
Title: The Time to Virtualize Storage is NOW
Keynote: Jon Toigo, CEO Toigo Partners International, Chairman Data Management Institute
Storage expert Jon Toigo is a columnist for Enterprise Systems and contributing writer for Virtualization Review. He is a consultant, blogger and author of 15 books on business technology, disaster recovery and data storage.
Join industry leaders for a free supercast designed to help you understand the growing need and value of virtualized storage, as well as tips and strategies for implementation and optimization.
Featured Presentations include:
Secrets to 100% Uptime in a Virtualized Environment by DataCore
Monday, 22 November 2010
Virtualization Begets Virtualization: Extending Efficiency and Business Agility
Interesting article:
http://www.enterprisestrategygroup.com/2010/08/virtualization-begets-virtualization-extending-efficiency-and-business-agility/
Storage virtualization is often combined with server virtualization. Storage virtualization (functionality that takes multiple storage systems and treats those devices as a single, centrally-managed pool of storage) provides an additional opportunity to reduce IT costs and optimize efficiency—especially as server virtualization proliferates. ESG research indicates that among current server virtualization users, 86% report they have storage virtualization initiatives as a top spending priority over the next 12 to 18 months. The combination often amplifies the benefits of both forms of virtualization: lowering costs, improving resource utilization, increasing availability, simplifying upgrades, and enabling scalability.
As organizations become more comfortable with one form of virtualization, they don’t have to make great intellectual or philosophical leaps in order to grasp the concept of virtualizing other data center domains. Oftentimes, IT organizations undertaking complete data center refresh initiatives have virtualization as top of mind and would look to extract all possible efficiencies in one fell swoop by deploying virtualization in multiple technology areas.
http://www.enterprisestrategygroup.com/2010/08/virtualization-begets-virtualization-extending-efficiency-and-business-agility/
Storage virtualization is often combined with server virtualization. Storage virtualization (functionality that takes multiple storage systems and treats those devices as a single, centrally-managed pool of storage) provides an additional opportunity to reduce IT costs and optimize efficiency—especially as server virtualization proliferates. ESG research indicates that among current server virtualization users, 86% report they have storage virtualization initiatives as a top spending priority over the next 12 to 18 months. The combination often amplifies the benefits of both forms of virtualization: lowering costs, improving resource utilization, increasing availability, simplifying upgrades, and enabling scalability.
As organizations become more comfortable with one form of virtualization, they don’t have to make great intellectual or philosophical leaps in order to grasp the concept of virtualizing other data center domains. Oftentimes, IT organizations undertaking complete data center refresh initiatives have virtualization as top of mind and would look to extract all possible efficiencies in one fell swoop by deploying virtualization in multiple technology areas.
Friday, 12 November 2010
Educational Institutions of All Sizes Benefit from DataCore Virtualization Software at the Heart of Their Virtualization Infrastructure
For more information, contact a DataCore partner for details or go to http://www.datacore.com/education .
Schools and universities worldwide are using DataCore storage virtualization software to complement their server and/or desktop virtualization projects
The education sector continues to beat a path to DataCore as the cornerstone of a virtualized infrastructure. “DataCore has been an excellent solution that enabled us to virtualize our new and existing storage solutions on the back-end while keeping a single interface and single management point for managing all of our different SAN environments,” states Dustin Fennell, vice president of IT and CIO, Scottsdale Community College. “Beyond this, we have attained better performance with DataCore and we now have the benefit of high-availability.”
DataCore’s software solutions enable the data centers and IT departments within educational institutions to better manage and maximize storage capacity and leverage existing hardware to protect and serve storage assets to Microsoft, VMware and Citrix virtual servers and desktops.
Moreover, because DataCore cares about education and sees it as a strategic investment for the future, it therefore provides qualified academic institutions with access to special promotional offers and extra discounts of up to 50% on DataCore virtualization software packages: http://www.datacore.com/education .
Educational institutions of all sizes are embracing DataCore’s software-based approach to storage virtualization in order to enable them to overcome storage-related funding roadblocks, downtime and performance issues. A sampling of the very newest institutions in the US to embrace DataCore at the heart of their virtualization infrastructures are: American River College, Arizona State University, Bellarmine University, Berkshire School, Capital Community College, Louisburg College, Midwestern University, Mount Anthony Middle School, NY Network, Notre Dame Academy, Rogue Community College, North Star Charter School, Sacramento City College, Scottsdale Community College, Shenandoah School Corporation, Spalding University, University of California San Francisco, Three Rivers Community College, Utica College, Virginia Wesleyan College, Wittenberg University, and others.
In addition to these newer customers, in the USA a host of educational organizations have already deployed storage virtualization using DataCore’s SANmelody™ and SANsymphony™ solutions. These include Auburn University, Daytona Beach Community College, Georgia Institute of Technology, Los Rios Community College District, Midway College, Mount St. Mary’s University, Sullivan University, Syracuse University, Texas A&M University at Kingsville, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Illinois, University of Utah - Education Network, University of Utah, School of Medicine, and many, many more – spanning the globe and spanning all levels of education.
The needs of IT departments that support educational institutions can suffer from the same shortfall that every other IT department can: a virtualization project that stops at servers and desktops and therefore misses an important component – storage. “In a K-12 setting, if the school districts are not looking at virtualization, they are cutting their legs out from under themselves,” states Steve Gumm, IT director, Barren County Schools.
Oxford University –
“The DataCore and VMware solution allows us to plug in and support storage and virtual servers as and when we need; ultimately DataCore provides a cost-effective storage solution that we are happy to recommend.”- Jon Hutchings, Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS).
Read full case study: Storage Virtualization at Oxford University
Schools and universities worldwide are using DataCore storage virtualization software to complement their server and/or desktop virtualization projects
The education sector continues to beat a path to DataCore as the cornerstone of a virtualized infrastructure. “DataCore has been an excellent solution that enabled us to virtualize our new and existing storage solutions on the back-end while keeping a single interface and single management point for managing all of our different SAN environments,” states Dustin Fennell, vice president of IT and CIO, Scottsdale Community College. “Beyond this, we have attained better performance with DataCore and we now have the benefit of high-availability.”
DataCore’s software solutions enable the data centers and IT departments within educational institutions to better manage and maximize storage capacity and leverage existing hardware to protect and serve storage assets to Microsoft, VMware and Citrix virtual servers and desktops.
Moreover, because DataCore cares about education and sees it as a strategic investment for the future, it therefore provides qualified academic institutions with access to special promotional offers and extra discounts of up to 50% on DataCore virtualization software packages: http://www.datacore.com/education .
Educational institutions of all sizes are embracing DataCore’s software-based approach to storage virtualization in order to enable them to overcome storage-related funding roadblocks, downtime and performance issues. A sampling of the very newest institutions in the US to embrace DataCore at the heart of their virtualization infrastructures are: American River College, Arizona State University, Bellarmine University, Berkshire School, Capital Community College, Louisburg College, Midwestern University, Mount Anthony Middle School, NY Network, Notre Dame Academy, Rogue Community College, North Star Charter School, Sacramento City College, Scottsdale Community College, Shenandoah School Corporation, Spalding University, University of California San Francisco, Three Rivers Community College, Utica College, Virginia Wesleyan College, Wittenberg University, and others.
In addition to these newer customers, in the USA a host of educational organizations have already deployed storage virtualization using DataCore’s SANmelody™ and SANsymphony™ solutions. These include Auburn University, Daytona Beach Community College, Georgia Institute of Technology, Los Rios Community College District, Midway College, Mount St. Mary’s University, Sullivan University, Syracuse University, Texas A&M University at Kingsville, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Illinois, University of Utah - Education Network, University of Utah, School of Medicine, and many, many more – spanning the globe and spanning all levels of education.
The needs of IT departments that support educational institutions can suffer from the same shortfall that every other IT department can: a virtualization project that stops at servers and desktops and therefore misses an important component – storage. “In a K-12 setting, if the school districts are not looking at virtualization, they are cutting their legs out from under themselves,” states Steve Gumm, IT director, Barren County Schools.
Oxford University –
“The DataCore and VMware solution allows us to plug in and support storage and virtual servers as and when we need; ultimately DataCore provides a cost-effective storage solution that we are happy to recommend.”- Jon Hutchings, Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS).
Read full case study: Storage Virtualization at Oxford University
Monday, 11 October 2010
DataCore Software Fuels Growth, Adds Key Virtualization Industry Veterans to Scale Channel Operations as New Partners "Catch the Storage Virtualization Wave"
http://vmblog.com/archive/2010/10/08/datacore-software-fuels-growth-adds-key-virtualization-industry-veterans-to-scale-channel-operations-as-new-partners-catch-the-storage-virtualization-wave.aspx
DataCore Software, today announced that the company has continued to attract top talent from VMware and Citrix in key executive positions to fuel growth and to take the company to the forefront of the virtualization market space. DataCore has hired Dan Hascall as the new Vice President of Americas Sales, promoted Martin Clancy to the position of Chief Financial Officer, and appointed Johan Vanhaeren as the new regional director covering the Benelux countries.
“With over 6,000 customers worldwide and nearly 20,000 licenses shipped, we are tapping the wave of virtualization that has spread from servers and desktops to storage,” comments George Teixeira, president and CEO, DataCore Software. “Storage virtualization software, like its server and desktop virtualization cousins, is all about software that lives beyond the life of storage devices that come and go over time, making users’ storage investments better and more economical. Adding these industry veterans to our management team comes as we prepare an even more aggressive push to the reseller community and to virtualization users. We are hiring experienced virtualization industry leaders to fuel our growth as storage virtualization takes center stage and becomes more and more mainstream – both in the enterprise and in the Cloud.”
Widely recognized as the software leader in storage virtualization, DataCore has continued its double digit growth despite recessionary times. DataCore’s software solutions enable data centers and IT departments to better manage, consolidate and maximize storage capacity as well as to leverage existing hardware in order to protect and serve storage assets to VMware, Microsoft and Citrix virtual servers and desktops.
DataCore Doubles North America Sales Team; Hires Dan Hascall, New Vice President of Sales for the Americas
Building for growth in North America, in 2010 DataCore has doubled its North America sales team and hired Dan Hascall, formerly of VMware, to lead it as the new Vice President of Americas Sales. Hascall came to VMware in 2006 and helped develop VMware’s channel model and was responsible for the company’s Western Channel region. “DataCore is well-positioned for major success in both the network and Cloud computing models,” states Hascall. “And my question to users is simply ‘Why haven’t you virtualized your storage?’ Virtualization applies equally well to servers, desktops and storage. With DataCore, the move to storage virtualization is painless and partners can offer real value and strategic business agility to their customers. DataCore storage virtualization is the critical foundation that makes it easy for customers to move along the virtualization journey.”
Finance & Operations Expertise with a Channel Mindset: DataCore Promotes Martin Clancy to Chief Financial Officer
Martin Clancy has been promoted to Chief Financial Officer at DataCore Software. Clancy came to DataCore from Citrix Systems, a marquee virtualization vendor with a blue-chip reseller community and an extraordinarily channel-oriented mindset. In his twelve years with Citrix, Clancy served in a variety of financial and operations roles, the last one being Senior Director, Finance & Product Operations for the Desktop Division.
“DataCore is seeing a lot of growth and the numbers are compelling,” notes Clancy. “The appetite for virtualization technologies stems from the fact that these technologies give organizations that use them freedom. But from the perspective of CFO, I look at the tangible business benefits that virtualization brings, and they are incredibly persuasive on the storage-side. Virtualizing storage resources means that institutions are not locked in to a particular storage vendor and therefore gain greater purchasing power; they can avoid downtime, planned or unplanned; improve the performance of storage devices; mix current storage devices with newly purchased equipment; and, most importantly, stay within a budget.”
Worldwide Momentum in the Channel: DataCore Hires New Director of the Benelux Region
DataCore has also appointed Johan Vanhaeren, based in Belgium, as director for the Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg) region. Vanhaeren was the former country manager for Citrix in the Benelux region. “Just like its storage virtualization and desktop virtualization counterparts, DataCore storage virtualization software is changing the way resellers, solution providers and virtualization administrators manage and deploy virtualization projects and Clouds,” said Vanhaeren. “And this adoption is worldwide in its scope. The virtualization phenomenon knows no boundaries.”
Adds Teixeira, “More companies and institutions of all sizes are experiencing first-hand the power that comes from embracing DataCore’s software-based approach to storage virtualization, which includes achieving the highest degree of availability, flexibility and openness for their storage. We will continue to build our leadership team and company to help bring the benefits of DataCore storage virtualization to customers worldwide, helping them to evolve their current storage environments to attain the added benefits of virtualization.”
DataCore Software, today announced that the company has continued to attract top talent from VMware and Citrix in key executive positions to fuel growth and to take the company to the forefront of the virtualization market space. DataCore has hired Dan Hascall as the new Vice President of Americas Sales, promoted Martin Clancy to the position of Chief Financial Officer, and appointed Johan Vanhaeren as the new regional director covering the Benelux countries.
“With over 6,000 customers worldwide and nearly 20,000 licenses shipped, we are tapping the wave of virtualization that has spread from servers and desktops to storage,” comments George Teixeira, president and CEO, DataCore Software. “Storage virtualization software, like its server and desktop virtualization cousins, is all about software that lives beyond the life of storage devices that come and go over time, making users’ storage investments better and more economical. Adding these industry veterans to our management team comes as we prepare an even more aggressive push to the reseller community and to virtualization users. We are hiring experienced virtualization industry leaders to fuel our growth as storage virtualization takes center stage and becomes more and more mainstream – both in the enterprise and in the Cloud.”
Widely recognized as the software leader in storage virtualization, DataCore has continued its double digit growth despite recessionary times. DataCore’s software solutions enable data centers and IT departments to better manage, consolidate and maximize storage capacity as well as to leverage existing hardware in order to protect and serve storage assets to VMware, Microsoft and Citrix virtual servers and desktops.
DataCore Doubles North America Sales Team; Hires Dan Hascall, New Vice President of Sales for the Americas
Building for growth in North America, in 2010 DataCore has doubled its North America sales team and hired Dan Hascall, formerly of VMware, to lead it as the new Vice President of Americas Sales. Hascall came to VMware in 2006 and helped develop VMware’s channel model and was responsible for the company’s Western Channel region. “DataCore is well-positioned for major success in both the network and Cloud computing models,” states Hascall. “And my question to users is simply ‘Why haven’t you virtualized your storage?’ Virtualization applies equally well to servers, desktops and storage. With DataCore, the move to storage virtualization is painless and partners can offer real value and strategic business agility to their customers. DataCore storage virtualization is the critical foundation that makes it easy for customers to move along the virtualization journey.”
Finance & Operations Expertise with a Channel Mindset: DataCore Promotes Martin Clancy to Chief Financial Officer
Martin Clancy has been promoted to Chief Financial Officer at DataCore Software. Clancy came to DataCore from Citrix Systems, a marquee virtualization vendor with a blue-chip reseller community and an extraordinarily channel-oriented mindset. In his twelve years with Citrix, Clancy served in a variety of financial and operations roles, the last one being Senior Director, Finance & Product Operations for the Desktop Division.
“DataCore is seeing a lot of growth and the numbers are compelling,” notes Clancy. “The appetite for virtualization technologies stems from the fact that these technologies give organizations that use them freedom. But from the perspective of CFO, I look at the tangible business benefits that virtualization brings, and they are incredibly persuasive on the storage-side. Virtualizing storage resources means that institutions are not locked in to a particular storage vendor and therefore gain greater purchasing power; they can avoid downtime, planned or unplanned; improve the performance of storage devices; mix current storage devices with newly purchased equipment; and, most importantly, stay within a budget.”
Worldwide Momentum in the Channel: DataCore Hires New Director of the Benelux Region
DataCore has also appointed Johan Vanhaeren, based in Belgium, as director for the Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg) region. Vanhaeren was the former country manager for Citrix in the Benelux region. “Just like its storage virtualization and desktop virtualization counterparts, DataCore storage virtualization software is changing the way resellers, solution providers and virtualization administrators manage and deploy virtualization projects and Clouds,” said Vanhaeren. “And this adoption is worldwide in its scope. The virtualization phenomenon knows no boundaries.”
Adds Teixeira, “More companies and institutions of all sizes are experiencing first-hand the power that comes from embracing DataCore’s software-based approach to storage virtualization, which includes achieving the highest degree of availability, flexibility and openness for their storage. We will continue to build our leadership team and company to help bring the benefits of DataCore storage virtualization to customers worldwide, helping them to evolve their current storage environments to attain the added benefits of virtualization.”
Friday, 8 October 2010
Citrix Synergy 2010: DataCore Virtualization Software Improves Availability and Performance While Overcoming the High Capital and Operational Costs of Storage for Virtual Desktops
http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=16289
At Citrix Synergy 2010 in Berlin, DataCore Software, a leading provider of storage virtualization, is highlighting how joint Citrix and DataCore customers have benefited from performance gains, improved availability and cost efficiencies resulting from virtualizing their desktops, servers and storage. DataCore delivers a cost-effective storage infrastructure for Citrix Virtual Servers and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) by avoiding the need to “rip and replace” existing storage and SANs, thereby avoiding large, upfront capital expenses and greatly reducing ongoing operational costs.
“For more than two decades, Citrix Systems has been deploying virtualization solutions. This experience pays off; with our continuous advancements in desktop and server virtualization, we are making this technology accessible to a broad customer base,” says Jens Luebben, Managing Director Germany and Area Vice President Central Europe at Citrix Systems Inc. “After having successfully launched Citrix Technology Alliance last year, we continue to work joint projects with DataCore that have been proven in practice. Together with storage virtualization partners like DataCore, we want to use Citrix Synergy 2010 to respond to the most pressing questions about virtualization.”
Virtual Desktop Infrastructures along with Citrix XenServer, XenDesktop and XenApp require failsafe and centralized storage solution, but in many cases this is jeopardized due to the high costs involved. With DataCore's storage virtualization, users can easily create cost-effective "shared" storage for virtual servers and desktops from new and existing storage capacities. Customers benefit from investment protection, higher capacity utilization, better performance and affordable, high availability storage.
By virtualizing disk storage devices from different brands and vendors, DataCore™ software eliminates incompatibilities across generations, models and manufacturers and maximizes the joint value of these resources. Thus, storage-related disruptions, bottlenecks and financial hurdles which threaten virtualization projects, can be eliminated. This reduces costs, minimizes risks and increases productivity.
Virtualization is Three-Dimensional: Efficiency Impacts Desktops, Servers and Storage
Many successful installations with Citrix and DataCore worldwide illustrate the three-dimensional virtualization spanning desktops, servers and storage. Clemens Albrecht, Head of IT at Plakanda Management AG, a service provider of outdoor advertising in Switzerland, says, “We are very pleased with our decision to implement a virtualization strategy with Citrix and DataCore. With the combination of SANmelody™ and the Citrix XenServer and Citrix Essentials we benefit from having dynamic storage management, reduced administration and long-term cost savings.”
German hospital Muldental is also relying on a virtual infrastructure based on Citrix and DataCore. “Virtualization with DataCore and Citrix has reduced our hardware and software costs, simplified the administration and provided the flexibility for responding to requests quickly and efficiently. We can import updates for hundreds of identical desktops in a few minutes, or set up a special server such as one for the endoscopy department. DataCore's storage virtualization software ensures that our IT is continuously operating. A fact that we greatly depend on,” says Thomas Enderlein, IT Manager at Muldental.
See more information on effective storage solutions for Citrix with DataCore Software at http://www.datacore.com/solutions/govirt-citrix.asp .
At Citrix Synergy 2010 in Berlin, DataCore Software, a leading provider of storage virtualization, is highlighting how joint Citrix and DataCore customers have benefited from performance gains, improved availability and cost efficiencies resulting from virtualizing their desktops, servers and storage. DataCore delivers a cost-effective storage infrastructure for Citrix Virtual Servers and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) by avoiding the need to “rip and replace” existing storage and SANs, thereby avoiding large, upfront capital expenses and greatly reducing ongoing operational costs.
“For more than two decades, Citrix Systems has been deploying virtualization solutions. This experience pays off; with our continuous advancements in desktop and server virtualization, we are making this technology accessible to a broad customer base,” says Jens Luebben, Managing Director Germany and Area Vice President Central Europe at Citrix Systems Inc. “After having successfully launched Citrix Technology Alliance last year, we continue to work joint projects with DataCore that have been proven in practice. Together with storage virtualization partners like DataCore, we want to use Citrix Synergy 2010 to respond to the most pressing questions about virtualization.”
Virtual Desktop Infrastructures along with Citrix XenServer, XenDesktop and XenApp require failsafe and centralized storage solution, but in many cases this is jeopardized due to the high costs involved. With DataCore's storage virtualization, users can easily create cost-effective "shared" storage for virtual servers and desktops from new and existing storage capacities. Customers benefit from investment protection, higher capacity utilization, better performance and affordable, high availability storage.
By virtualizing disk storage devices from different brands and vendors, DataCore™ software eliminates incompatibilities across generations, models and manufacturers and maximizes the joint value of these resources. Thus, storage-related disruptions, bottlenecks and financial hurdles which threaten virtualization projects, can be eliminated. This reduces costs, minimizes risks and increases productivity.
Virtualization is Three-Dimensional: Efficiency Impacts Desktops, Servers and Storage
Many successful installations with Citrix and DataCore worldwide illustrate the three-dimensional virtualization spanning desktops, servers and storage. Clemens Albrecht, Head of IT at Plakanda Management AG, a service provider of outdoor advertising in Switzerland, says, “We are very pleased with our decision to implement a virtualization strategy with Citrix and DataCore. With the combination of SANmelody™ and the Citrix XenServer and Citrix Essentials we benefit from having dynamic storage management, reduced administration and long-term cost savings.”
German hospital Muldental is also relying on a virtual infrastructure based on Citrix and DataCore. “Virtualization with DataCore and Citrix has reduced our hardware and software costs, simplified the administration and provided the flexibility for responding to requests quickly and efficiently. We can import updates for hundreds of identical desktops in a few minutes, or set up a special server such as one for the endoscopy department. DataCore's storage virtualization software ensures that our IT is continuously operating. A fact that we greatly depend on,” says Thomas Enderlein, IT Manager at Muldental.
See more information on effective storage solutions for Citrix with DataCore Software at http://www.datacore.com/solutions/govirt-citrix.asp .
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Wall Street Journal Blog: When Consolidation Fosters Innovation -6 Companies worth Watching includes DataCore Software
6 Companies to Watch, check the list: http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2010/09/29/when-consolidation-fosters-innovation-among-start-ups/
Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing for the storage virtualization firm DataCore Software Corp., says “our pitch to buyers is, whoever they buy their storage infrastructure from, we can help them maximize the value of that infrastructure.”
Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing for the storage virtualization firm DataCore Software Corp., says “our pitch to buyers is, whoever they buy their storage infrastructure from, we can help them maximize the value of that infrastructure.”
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Fujitsu and DataCore Software Partner for Virtualized Storage
eWeek Storage Report: Fujitsu, DataCore Partner for Virtualized Storage
One could say that Fujitsu as a company is a bit cautious about change and in choosing its partners. But that would be a massive understatement.
Being cautious in international business is undoubtedly a very good thing. Note that Fujitsu is one of the world's true IT powerhouses.
However, good quality, second-generation storage virtualization has been available and used in production by many enterprises for more than four years. Companies like Dell, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, NetApp and a slew of others already have snapped up their own such suppliers and incorporated their wares into their catalogs.
Thus it is indeed news that Fujitsu now has a storage virtualization software partner. On Sept. 9 it was announced that Fujitsu has validated DataCore storage virtualization software to run on its storage arrays and servers.
Thus, the two will produce high-end Fujitsu Eternus and Primergy systems featuring DataCore SANsymphony and make them available immediately through local channel partners.
DataCore said the combination enables easy real-time provisioning of storage within cloud infrastructures. DataCore's secret sauce also adds high availability, making it possible to move data and virtual machines as needed, where needed in a cloud storage architecture.
The new systems will at first become available this fall in Europe -- Austria, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom....
One could say that Fujitsu as a company is a bit cautious about change and in choosing its partners. But that would be a massive understatement.
Being cautious in international business is undoubtedly a very good thing. Note that Fujitsu is one of the world's true IT powerhouses.
However, good quality, second-generation storage virtualization has been available and used in production by many enterprises for more than four years. Companies like Dell, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, NetApp and a slew of others already have snapped up their own such suppliers and incorporated their wares into their catalogs.
Thus it is indeed news that Fujitsu now has a storage virtualization software partner. On Sept. 9 it was announced that Fujitsu has validated DataCore storage virtualization software to run on its storage arrays and servers.
Thus, the two will produce high-end Fujitsu Eternus and Primergy systems featuring DataCore SANsymphony and make them available immediately through local channel partners.
DataCore said the combination enables easy real-time provisioning of storage within cloud infrastructures. DataCore's secret sauce also adds high availability, making it possible to move data and virtual machines as needed, where needed in a cloud storage architecture.
The new systems will at first become available this fall in Europe -- Austria, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom....
Friday, 17 September 2010
VMworld 2010: DataCore Showcased Why Its Storage Virtualization and Stretch High-Availability Software Eliminates Business Outages that Jeopardize Cloud Computing
At VMworld 2010 in San Francisco at the Moscone Center, DataCore showcased how fundamental software-based storage virtualization is to cloud computing.
The Mirazon Group's Chief Technical Architect Barry Martin states:
"Cloud computing platforms demand unprecedented uptime due to server and storage consolidation. DataCore's high-availability approach provides zero downtime. This is a tremendous advantage."
Storage Virtualization and Stretch HA Software for Non-stop Clouds
DataCore is blazing a trail by developing storage virtualization software that is a game-changer in terms of how resellers, solution providers as well as companies considering virtualization deployments manage and deploy virtualization projects and Clouds. The game-changer is that by deploying DataCore in a stretch high-availability (HA) configuration, DataCore delivers fault-tolerance that virtually eliminates storage-related outages that jeopardize business continuity and plague virtualization and consolidation initiatives.
"The DataCore Software stretch high-availability solution delivers seamless, enterprise-class business continuity, data resiliency, and high performance at an affordable price tag," states Aaron Schneider, principal and co-founder, Helixstorm, Inc. "Your applications, virtual servers and virtual desktops and VM migrations continue to run non-stop despite back-end storage changes, failures or reconfigurations. Bottom-line, you get a true high-availability, shared storage solution that automatically protects your data and your virtual machines right out-of-the box just by deploying the virtual storage software in two locations."
DataCore in the Cloud: Achieve the Highest Degree of Availability, Flexibility and Openness for Your Storage
Host.net knows intuitively that storage virtualization software is priority one. "Any cloud computing platform, just like any virtualization deployment, needs to have portable software as its building blocks," notes Jeffrey Slapp, vice president of virtualization services, Host.net. "We chose DataCore in the core design of our virtual private data center (vPDC) platform alongside VMware and Cisco because it delivers the very best storage virtualization component."
DataCore storage virtualization software is virtualizing the storage aspect of an all-virtual private data center (vPDC) platform developed by Host.net. Host.net delivers private cloud computing services for companies ranging from SMEs to large enterprises, utilizing a true software-based approach for the greatest flexibility. Check out the Case study here: Host.Net Case Study on Why Host.net Chose DataCore?
Contain Costs, Avoid Risks, Boost Productivity and Extend the Life of IT Investments with DataCore Software
Even though server and desktop virtualization and consolidation have garnered much of the virtualization press to date, now the real focus of concern is turning from how to virtualize and consolidate servers and desktops to how can we do more to mitigate the risk that results from consolidation. The key concerns being, "How do I insulate my business applications from storage related failures and disruptions that can severely impact virtual machine images and data that are key to running the business?" and "How good is my high-availability, disaster recovery and shared storage solutions?"
DataCore addresses these concerns with proven software deployed in thousands of customer sites around the world. DataCore's software virtualizes disks across pools of tiered storage devices enabling users to provision, share, reconfigure, migrate, replicate, expand or upgrade without slowdowns or downtime. Simply put, DataCore:
+Complements your storage and makes it more reliable, faster and better.
+Works across unlike & incompatible storage devices.
+Eliminates storage-related disruptions, bottlenecks and funding roadblocks that jeopardize virtualization and cloud deployments.
DataCore partner Andy Judge, founder and CEO of Miami-based Grove Networks, encapsulates the value DataCore brings as follows, "DataCore storage virtualization software gives our clients cost savings and flexibility that is not achievable with storage hardware alone. It takes hardware to a higher level - serving as a hardware and productivity 'enhancer' that pays dividends over the short and long term."
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Fujitsu maximises flexibility of storage architectures with DataCore storage virtualisation
Sean Haffey, product marketing manager Unix and Storage at Fujitsu UK & Ireland, says: “By combining our server and storage solutions with DataCore software, customers benefit from storage consolidation in various usage scenarios. We deliver complete storage pool architectures customised to our customers’ ever-changing needs - via a single source.”
http://www.sns-uk.co.uk/news_full.php?id=15628
Fujitsu announces the validated integration of its datacentre storage and server systems with DataCore storage virtualisation software, helping to minimise the risks for enterprises switching to virtualised storage pool architectures. The pre-tested and qualified solution with Fujitsu ETERNUS and PRIMERGY with DataCore SANsymphony is available immediately.
The tighter integration of Fujitsu ETERNUS DX disk storage systems and PRIMERGY X86 tower, blade and rack servers with DataCore’s storage virtualisation software offers enterprises a powerful storage solution that is flexible and easy-to-manage. The reliable and secure disk storage systems integrate well with host operating systems, multi-vendor servers, network infrastructures and back-up solutions.
To minimise the potential risks of permanent data loss, Fujitsu’s ETERNUS DX disk storage systems already provide many redundant components. DataCore adds an independent storage virtualisation layer to further optimise the availability of storage. It ensures an uninterruptible operation of storage systems in case a failover is necessary. DataCore SANsymphony™ provides the ability to mirror data over distances between storage systems with active/active access.
Adding the DataCore virtualisation layer gives customers the ability to scale multiple independent ETERNUS DX systems. The advantage is that the ETERNUS DX can act as one global storage pool that can be expanded virtually to any size far beyond the capacity of each single storage unit. Thanks to Fujitsu and DataCore, customers can now distribute data in their storage infrastructure in real-time, therefore removing any Single Point of Failure, and making it possible to move the data to every storage device in flexible storage pool architecture in real-time for highest availability.
Sean Haffey, product marketing manager Unix and Storage at Fujitsu UK & Ireland, says: “By combining our server and storage solutions with DataCore software, customers benefit from storage consolidation in various usage scenarios. We deliver complete storage pool architectures customised to our customers’ ever-changing needs - via a single source.”
Christian Hagen, vice president EMEA & Americas at DataCore Software said: “Combined Fujitsu and DataCore solutions enable joint customers to easily build powerful, extremely fast and reliable virtual storage infrastructures. By qualifying SANsymphony for Fujitsu ETERNUS and PRIMERGY systems, DataCore and Fujitsu assure a pre-tested environment for dynamic storage on demand concepts optimised for storage pool architectures. This solution is built on our long term success with Fujitsu based installations in the field. It now opens up the channel for Fujitsu resellers and customers to benefit from this combined qualified infrastructure working perfectly together.”
Fujitsu Maximizes Business Continuity and Flexibility of Cloud Storage Architectures with DataCore
IT Director: http://www.it-director.com/channels/distribution/news_release.php?rel=19981
Storage Technology Solutions: http://storagetechnologysolutions.blogspot.com/2010/09/fujitsu-maximizes-business-continuity.html
Virtual Strategy Magazine: http://www.virtual-strategy.com/Press-Releases/Fujitsu-Maximizes-Business-Continuity-and-Flexibility-of-Cloud-Storage-Architectures-with-DataCore.html
VMblog: http://vmblog.com/archive/2010/09/09/fujitsu-maximizes-business-continuity-and-flexibility-of-cloud-storage-architectures-with-datacore-storage-virtualization.aspx
HPC in the Cloud: http://www.hpcinthecloud.com/offthewire/Fujitsu-Maximizes-Business-Continuity-and-Flexibility-of-Cloud-Storage-Architectures-with-DataCore-Storage-Virtualization-102529414.html
DABCC: http://www.dabcc.com/channel.aspx?id=208 and http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=15983
Data Storage Connections: http://www.datastorageconnection.com/article.mvc/DataCore-Software-Fujitsu-Maximizes-Business-0001?atc~c=771+s=773+r=001+l=a
Computer Technology Review: http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9121:fujitsu-maximizes-business-continuity-improves-flexibility-of-cloud-storage-architectures-with-datacore-storage-virtualization&catid=232:disaster-recovery&Itemid=2701196
http://www.sns-uk.co.uk/news_full.php?id=15628
Fujitsu announces the validated integration of its datacentre storage and server systems with DataCore storage virtualisation software, helping to minimise the risks for enterprises switching to virtualised storage pool architectures. The pre-tested and qualified solution with Fujitsu ETERNUS and PRIMERGY with DataCore SANsymphony is available immediately.
The tighter integration of Fujitsu ETERNUS DX disk storage systems and PRIMERGY X86 tower, blade and rack servers with DataCore’s storage virtualisation software offers enterprises a powerful storage solution that is flexible and easy-to-manage. The reliable and secure disk storage systems integrate well with host operating systems, multi-vendor servers, network infrastructures and back-up solutions.
To minimise the potential risks of permanent data loss, Fujitsu’s ETERNUS DX disk storage systems already provide many redundant components. DataCore adds an independent storage virtualisation layer to further optimise the availability of storage. It ensures an uninterruptible operation of storage systems in case a failover is necessary. DataCore SANsymphony™ provides the ability to mirror data over distances between storage systems with active/active access.
Adding the DataCore virtualisation layer gives customers the ability to scale multiple independent ETERNUS DX systems. The advantage is that the ETERNUS DX can act as one global storage pool that can be expanded virtually to any size far beyond the capacity of each single storage unit. Thanks to Fujitsu and DataCore, customers can now distribute data in their storage infrastructure in real-time, therefore removing any Single Point of Failure, and making it possible to move the data to every storage device in flexible storage pool architecture in real-time for highest availability.
Sean Haffey, product marketing manager Unix and Storage at Fujitsu UK & Ireland, says: “By combining our server and storage solutions with DataCore software, customers benefit from storage consolidation in various usage scenarios. We deliver complete storage pool architectures customised to our customers’ ever-changing needs - via a single source.”
Christian Hagen, vice president EMEA & Americas at DataCore Software said: “Combined Fujitsu and DataCore solutions enable joint customers to easily build powerful, extremely fast and reliable virtual storage infrastructures. By qualifying SANsymphony for Fujitsu ETERNUS and PRIMERGY systems, DataCore and Fujitsu assure a pre-tested environment for dynamic storage on demand concepts optimised for storage pool architectures. This solution is built on our long term success with Fujitsu based installations in the field. It now opens up the channel for Fujitsu resellers and customers to benefit from this combined qualified infrastructure working perfectly together.”
Fujitsu Maximizes Business Continuity and Flexibility of Cloud Storage Architectures with DataCore
IT Director: http://www.it-director.com/channels/distribution/news_release.php?rel=19981
Storage Technology Solutions: http://storagetechnologysolutions.blogspot.com/2010/09/fujitsu-maximizes-business-continuity.html
Virtual Strategy Magazine: http://www.virtual-strategy.com/Press-Releases/Fujitsu-Maximizes-Business-Continuity-and-Flexibility-of-Cloud-Storage-Architectures-with-DataCore.html
VMblog: http://vmblog.com/archive/2010/09/09/fujitsu-maximizes-business-continuity-and-flexibility-of-cloud-storage-architectures-with-datacore-storage-virtualization.aspx
HPC in the Cloud: http://www.hpcinthecloud.com/offthewire/Fujitsu-Maximizes-Business-Continuity-and-Flexibility-of-Cloud-Storage-Architectures-with-DataCore-Storage-Virtualization-102529414.html
DABCC: http://www.dabcc.com/channel.aspx?id=208 and http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=15983
Data Storage Connections: http://www.datastorageconnection.com/article.mvc/DataCore-Software-Fujitsu-Maximizes-Business-0001?atc~c=771+s=773+r=001+l=a
Computer Technology Review: http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9121:fujitsu-maximizes-business-continuity-improves-flexibility-of-cloud-storage-architectures-with-datacore-storage-virtualization&catid=232:disaster-recovery&Itemid=2701196
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Latest Videos on DataCore Storage Virtualization Software - Why I use DataCore: Host.net; DataCore CEO at VMworld
Why I use DataCore: Host.net:
DataCore CEO Talks Virtualization at VMworld
http://www.siliconangle.tv/video/storage-tiering-and-flash-performance-george-teixeira-talks-virtualization-tiered-storage-and-/
Saturday, 4 September 2010
VMworld 2010: DataCore Showcases Why Its Storage Virtualization and Stretch High-Availability Software Eliminates Business Outages that Jeopardize Cloud Computing
At VMworld 2010 being held in San Francisco at the Moscone Center this week, DataCore is showcasing how fundamental software-based storage virtualization is to cloud computing.
The Mirazon Group's Chief Technical Architect Barry Martin states:
"Cloud computing platforms demand unprecedented uptime due to server and storage consolidation. DataCore's high-availability approach provides zero downtime. This is a tremendous advantage."
Storage Virtualization and Stretch HA Software for Non-stop Clouds
DataCore is blazing a trail by developing storage virtualization software that is a game-changer in terms of how resellers, solution providers as well as companies considering virtualization deployments manage and deploy virtualization projects and Clouds. The game-changer is that by deploying DataCore in a stretch high-availability (HA) configuration, DataCore delivers fault-tolerance that virtually eliminates storage-related outages that jeopardize business continuity and plague virtualization and consolidation initiatives.
"The DataCore Software stretch high-availability solution delivers seamless, enterprise-class business continuity, data resiliency, and high performance at an affordable price tag," states Aaron Schneider, principal and co-founder, Helixstorm, Inc. "Your applications, virtual servers and virtual desktops and VM migrations continue to run non-stop despite back-end storage changes, failures or reconfigurations. Bottom-line, you get a true high-availability, shared storage solution that automatically protects your data and your virtual machines right out-of-the box just by deploying the virtual storage software in two locations."
DataCore in the Cloud: Achieve the Highest Degree of Availability, Flexibility and Openness for Your Storage
Host.net knows intuitively that storage virtualization software is priority one. "Any cloud computing platform, just like any virtualization deployment, needs to have portable software as its building blocks," notes Jeffrey Slapp, vice president of virtualization services, Host.net. "We chose DataCore in the core design of our virtual private data center (vPDC) platform alongside VMware and Cisco because it delivers the very best storage virtualization component."
DataCore storage virtualization software is virtualizing the storage aspect of an all-virtual private data center (vPDC) platform developed by Host.net. Host.net delivers private cloud computing services for companies ranging from SMEs to large enterprises, utilizing a true software-based approach for the greatest flexibility. Check out the Case study here: Host.Net Case Study on Why Host.net Chose DataCore?
Contain Costs, Avoid Risks, Boost Productivity and Extend the Life of IT Investments with DataCore Software
Even though server and desktop virtualization and consolidation have garnered much of the virtualization press to date, now the real focus of concern is turning from how to virtualize and consolidate servers and desktops to how can we do more to mitigate the risk that results from consolidation. The key concerns being, "How do I insulate my business applications from storage related failures and disruptions that can severely impact virtual machine images and data that are key to running the business?" and "How good is my high-availability, disaster recovery and shared storage solutions?"
DataCore addresses these concerns with proven software deployed in thousands of customer sites around the world. DataCore's software virtualizes disks across pools of tiered storage devices enabling users to provision, share, reconfigure, migrate, replicate, expand or upgrade without slowdowns or downtime. Simply put, DataCore:
+Complements your storage and makes it more reliable, faster and better.
+Works across unlike & incompatible storage devices.
+Eliminates storage-related disruptions, bottlenecks and funding roadblocks that jeopardize virtualization and cloud deployments.
Visit DataCore Customers and Partners Onsite at VMworld 2010 [Booth #1607]
Numerous DataCore customers, including Host.net and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, who have deployed DataCore along with top DataCore solution providers will be onsite at DataCore's VMworld booth [#1607] and are available and standing by to answer questions, highlight best practices and explain the DataCore difference.
DataCore partner Andy Judge, founder and CEO of Miami-based Grove Networks, encapsulates the value DataCore brings as follows, "DataCore storage virtualization software gives our clients cost savings and flexibility that is not achievable with storage hardware alone. It takes hardware to a higher level - serving as a hardware and productivity 'enhancer' that pays dividends over the short and long term."
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