DataCore's Blog has moved! Please Visit the New "DataCore - In The News' Blog for the latest news and updates...

Thank you for your readership and please continue to follow us by clicking on the image below:

         Or click to our new Blog site at:  http://www.datacore.com/datacore-news-blog.aspx

Virtualization Review and Jon Toigo Webcast on DataCore SANsymphony-V, February 22, 2011 at 11:30am EST

DataCore Software announced that it has partnered with Virtualization Review to host a live webcast entitled “Overcome the ‘Big Problem’ Stalling Server and Desktop Virtualization Projects.” This webcast, which takes place on February 22 at 11:30am Eastern Standard Time, will be recorded and it will address how IT organizations can eliminate the storage-related barriers preventing them from realizing the financial and operational goals of their virtualization initiatives.

Included will be a brief product demonstration introducing key functionality inherent to SANsymphony-V, a new generation of storage virtualization software designed to simplify and automate the three most important storage functions – Capacity Management, Performance Management, and Data Protection Management – needed to create a dynamic storage infrastructure for the virtual world.
Who: Moderator – 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.

Presenter #1 – Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing, DataCore Software.

Presenter #2 – George Teixeira, president and CEO, DataCore Software.

What: Webcast: “Overcome the ‘Big Problem’ Stalling Server and Desktop Virtualization Projects”
Unanticipated storage hardware investments and inefficient storage use are often the most critical factors that bring server consolidation and desktop virtualization projects to a standstill. During this webcast, attendees will learn:

•The root, storage-related causes behind the “big problem” stalling virtualization projects;
•A proven, cost-effective way to overcome the "big problem" using storage virtualization software;
•Contrasts between software-based approach and expensive “rip and replace” hardware proposals;
•How simple it is to manage a virtual shared storage infrastructure in concert with your virtual servers and virtual desktops using the newest DataCore™ product, SANsymphony™-V; and
•How data centers can use existing equipment and conventional storage devices to achieve the robust and responsive shared storage environment necessary to support highly dynamic virtual IT environments.

When: Tuesday, February 22nd at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (duration: 90 minutes)
Where: Register for the webcast at:
http://virtualizationreview.com/webcasts/2011/01/datacore-overcome-the-big-problem-stalling-server.aspx?tc=page0

DataCore Announces New Generation of Storage Virtualization Software that Solves the “Big Problem” Stalling Today’s Server and Desktop Virtualization Projects

SANsymphony-V delivers the critical “third dimension” to virtualization: software to cost-effectively shape the shared storage infrastructure required by virtual IT environments

Read the full product announcement at: http://tinyurl.com/6j65pyz
Check out the new material on the SANsymphony-V launch page: http://www.datacore.com/SANsymphony-V.

Read the New Enterprise Strategy Group White Paper:
DataCore's SANsymphony-V Storage Virtualization Software

Music to the Ears of Server Virtualization Users Stalled by Storage Challenges http://www.datacore.com/Libraries/Document_Library/ESG_Datacore_SANsymphony-V_Whitepaper.sflb.ashx

DataCore Software today announced the availability of SANsymphony™-V, the next-generation storage virtualization software solution that enables IT organizations to eliminate storage-related barriers preventing them from realizing the financial and operational goals of their virtualization initiatives.


The “Big Problem” Stalling Desktop and Server Virtualization Projects: Storage

“Unanticipated storage hardware investments and inefficient storage use are often the most critical factors that bring server consolidation and desktop virtualization projects to a screeching halt,” said Richard Villars, vice president of storage and IT executive strategies at IDC.  “Storage virtualization software solutions like DataCore’s SANsymphony-V allow IT teams to maximize the use of existing storage assets while also dramatically reducing administrative burdens. They frequently play the key role in ensuring the success of organizations’ server and desktop virtualization efforts.”

Two years in development, SANsymphony-V software enables datacenters to use existing equipment and conventional storage devices to achieve the robust and responsive shared storage environment necessary to support highly dynamic virtual IT environments. This contrasts sharply with the expensive “rip and replace” approaches being proposed to support desktop and server virtualization projects.

The new software helps to cost-effectively avoid the many performance problems caused by I/O bottlenecks and the lost business suffered from downtime that make customers very hesitant to virtualize crucial business applications, such as mail and databases systems. SANsymphony-V uses adaptive caching and performance boosting techniques perfected over the past 10 years to absorb wildly variable workloads while simultaneously removing storage as a single point of failure and disruption.  SANsymphony-V offers a flexible, open software platform from which to provision, share, reconfigure, migrate, replicate, expand, and upgrade storage without slowdowns or downtime.

Bottom-line: DataCore™ uses software to reshape server and disk resources already in use to meet the largely unpredictable and unforeseen workloads that virtual machines and virtual desktops throw at newly consolidated data centers – delivering compelling operational and economic value.

“With the launch of SANsymphony-V, DataCore has redesigned its software for virtual server and desktop environments. However, DataCore’s key benefits of extending the useful life of hardware, cutting hardware costs and removing vendor lock-in are still intact, and apply to both the physical and virtual world,” said Carla Arend, program manager, European infrastructure software research at IDC.  “By driving down storage cost and thus removing a major obstacle for adoption, DataCore makes server and desktop virtualization affordable for the broader IT community.”

The Business Advantage: Lower Costs, Reduced Risks, Enduring Value and Recurring Payoff
For some enterprises, DataCore has meant the difference between the success and failure in their virtualization projects.  “When we first received bids for our server virtualization project, we were shocked that the accompanying costs to adequately centralize and protect our disk farm would have eaten up most our budget,” said Judy Pieper-Young, manager, information systems, North American Stainless. “DataCore literally saved our project.  Its software dramatically reduced the storage costs and hassle factors by enabling us to use our existing resources.  At the same time, it eliminated the performance and availability risks that switching to consolidated storage would have created for our newly virtualized workloads.”


More Information

Extensive reference material and supporting videos of SANsymphony-V may be found at the SANsymphony-V launch page: http://www.datacore.com/SANsymphony-V.

In conjunction with the availability of SANsymphony-V, DataCore is also relaunching its company blog, “The Virtual Viewpoint: Storage Virtualization Blog.”

The blog can be found on the company’s website at: http://www.datacore.com/storage-virtualization-viewpoint-blog.aspx.

It’s time to solve the “Big Problem” stalling today’s server and desktop virtualization projects

Deployment   and operation of a successful virtualization strategy depends on   several core components: the right people, the right solution, a strong   grip on infrastructure investment, and a clear strategy.

Nonetheless,   whether it’s a straightforward data consolidation project or a larger   virtualization-based migration and integration exercise, most   organizations must overcome potential issues relating to flaws in the   core components that, if left unaddressed, will hinder a successful   project. This is a big challenge for companies, something that research   organizations such as Gartner have attested to, but not an insurmountable one.

First   and foremost, it’s critical that the IT department keeps on top of   managing and controlling storage assets. Poor use of available storage   assets, guerrilla purchasing and deployment of storage at a workgroup   level, and disconnected storage silos are among the biggest problems.   And all result in strains on IT spending, significant storage management   overhead, and inherent inefficiency.

However,   solving this does not have to entail a widespread rip-and-replace of   existing hardware. Far from it, in fact. Intelligent use of software   enables you to consolidate your storage estate virtually, rather than   just physically, allowing the business to access unused capacity across   the resource, rather than trapping it in local silos and workgroups,   saving money and improving utilization in one fell swoop.

This   is the Software Advantage we focus on. Software-based storage   virtualization infrastructure delivers transparency and flexibility, and   enables businesses to tackle current and future needs while at the  same  time bypassing the physical constraints of a hardware-centric  storage  solution that can hinder workflow.

Consolidating   storage is not just a space utilization issue; it is also one of cost   saving. A consolidated environment serving virtual and physical machine   storage requirements can, if done properly, deliver a range of   operational efficiencies from data and back-up management improvements   to maximizing availability, all of which reduce the need for costly   physical intervention to solve storage resource issues.

When   done well, and without the need for a massive investment in new   hardware to fit the strategy, storage virtualization software can   deliver significant cost savings in the short and long term, enabling   you to actually achieve your projected return on investment on your   overall virtualization initiative, while also unlocking the asset value   of data and reducing the risk of data loss or data management errors.

This   Software Advantage in storage virtualization is at the heart of what  we  do at DataCore. With that in mind, today marks the launch of DataCore’s SANsymphony-V,   the newest version of our storage virtualization software.   SANsymphony-V delivers the Software Advantage by freeing customers from   the high-costs, inadequate performance, inflexibility, and vendor lock   in inherent in a hardware-centric approach to storage. It is an open   software platform that “future proofs” your business against changing   storage requirements caused by server and desktop virtualization   initiatives, and enables customers to repurpose existing resources more   efficiently and choose lower-cost alternatives when adding new   resources. In short, SANsymphony-V solves today’s Big Problem stalling   desktop and server virtualization projects: the storage problem.

Brain Madden Blogs: DataCore Software releases a "nirvana" VDI storage solution and Benchmark Paper

DataCore releases a "nirvana" VDI storage solution. Full local virtual storage that's really cheap!
by Brian Madden
Back in September, I wrote an article describing a product that I wanted that didn't exist: a local "virtual" storage option for VDI. Basically I described why I didn't like SANs for VDI and that I thought it would be cool if there was some sort of software that could virtualize access to the local hard drives that are in a VDI host server. I was thinking a solution like that could create the best of both worlds: fast flexible storage without the overhead costs of a SAN.

In a new white paper from DataCore (direct PDF link), they claim that their SANmelody software running on a VDI host does fulfill my fantasy storage requirements. And they claim they can do it with full multi-server redundancy with a cost of less than $70 per user. (That's $70 for everything.. the VM host, the SANmelody software, the disks you need for storage... everything!)...

Frequent readers know that I'm not one to republish vendor papers. But in this case, the DataCore paper (by Ziya Aral & Jonathan Ely) is actually really, really good. They take a no-BS look at VDI storage, and they validate their architecture with standard tools like Login Consultants' VSI benchmark.

From the paper: Previous publications have reported on configurations which use thousands of virtual desktops to defray the cost of these controllers. Reading between the lines, it becomes immediately apparent that per-virtual desktop hardware costs rise very sharply as such configurations are scaled downward. Yet, it is precisely these smaller VDI configurations which are the more important from most practical standpoints. On the other hand, this configuration may also be scaled upwards, in a linear fashion, to thousands of virtual desktops, thus eliminating distended configurations created by the search for artificial "sweet spots" at which costs are optimized...

Read the full Blog post at: http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2011/01/25/datacore-releases-a-quot-nirvana-quot-vdi-storage-solution-full-local-virtual-storage-that-s-really-cheap.aspx

DataCore Software Publishes Breakthrough VDI Benchmark Results and Virtualization Paper: 'Benchmarking a Scalable and Highly Available Architecture for Virtual Desktops'

The benchmark results represent a greater than ten-fold (10x) decrease in the per-Desktop costs of SAN-based, high-availability virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs).
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/DataCore-Software-Publishes-prnews-2900175007.html?x=0&.v=1

"I loved this paper! Every other ROI discussion you see is based on the economic benefit a company derives by deploying thousands of virtual desktops - but in the real world, we start with ten, then a hundred, etc.," states Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "They will never show you that cost because it's huge! I appreciate the folks at DataCore shining the light on this and showing that you don't have to be able to spend a zillion dollars before you can see a return on a VDI initiative."

Read the full paper here: Benchmarking a Scalable and Highly Available Architecture for Virtual Desktops  – http://tinyurl.com/4hlrh46

See supporting videos here: The Future of Desktop Virtualization  – http://tinyurl.com/276yaot

New England VMUG: DataCore Showcases Real World Case Studies and Its Storage Virtualization Software at Major VMware User Group Gathering

At the New England VMware User Group meeting, DataCore Software will present the economic advantages of a software-based storage infrastructure and will showcase many joint VMware and DataCore customer case studies to the nearly 1000 expected attendees at Gillette Stadium. DataCore Software is a Gold Sponsor of this event.

If you get a chance to go, please attend the DataCore breakout session “Eliminate Storage-Related Downtime and Bottlenecks in Virtualized Environments” located on the Blue Level in Room 24 to learn what other users are doing and how you can:

• Eliminate single points of failure for 100% Uptime • Gain a 200% performance boost • Attain additional performance from your storage resources • Realize 60% cost savings

Hear how others are realizing the true promise of software-based virtual infrastructures and discover how your colleagues are reaping the benefits of combining VMware and software-based storage virtualization from DataCore. Showcased VMware and DataCore customers include:

• American Society of Health-System Pharmacists • Dinwiddie County Government • Town of South Windsor

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet and discuss your IT environment issues with the DataCore team and enter our drawing to win DataCore storage virtualization software.

More Details: New England VMware User Group

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.

Balesio AG FILEminimizer Server balesio FILEminimizer Server

Gluster Inc. GlusterFS 3.1 GlusterFS 3.1

Nasuni Corp. Nasuni Filer 2.0 Nasuni Filer 2.0

Nexenta Systems Inc. NexentaStor 3.0 NexentaStor 3.0

Quantum Corp. StorNext 4.0 StorNext 4.0

Quest Software Inc. vFoglight Storage 1.0 vFoglight Storage 1.0

Rackspace Hosting Inc. Cloud Files Rackspace Hosting Cloud Files

See DataCore Real-World Case Studies and Breakout Sessions on Elimintating Downtime at the VMware User Group New England Meeting; 1000 attendees expected to attend Gillette Stadium event

VMware User Group New England Meeting
Eliminate Storage-Related Downtime and Bottlenecks in Virtualized Environments

VMware vSphere solutions let you work around server hardware hiccups and workload congestion, but the shared storage on which they depend will soon prove to be your biggest single source of outages and slowdowns, with 10 to 100 times greater consequences.

Attend the DataCore breakout session “Eliminate Storage-Related Downtime and Bottlenecks in Virtualized Environments” and learn how to:

  *   Eliminate single points of failure for 100% Uptime
  *   Gain a 200% performance boost
  *   Attain additional performance from your storage resources
  *   Realize 60% cost savings
Hear real world case studies and discover how your colleagues are reaping the benefits of a virtualized storage environment.

  *   American Society of Health-System Pharmacists
  *   Dinwiddie County Government
  *   Town of South Windsor
Don’t miss the opportunity to meet the DataCore team and enter our drawing to win DataCore storage virtualization software.

The DataCore Software Team 

Register Now! 

January 20, 2011
8:00 am – 6:00 pm

Location

Gillette Stadium
1 Patriot Place
Foxborough, MA 02035

DataCore Session
Blue Level – Room 24

1:00 pm Breakout Session 1
2:00 pm Breakout Session 2
3:00 pm Breakout Session 3 

 Register Today!

The Software Advantage for Storage Virtualization: DataCore Software Sets the Stage for Virtualization Leadership in 2011

http://vmblog.com/archive/2010/12/29/the-software-advantage-for-storage-virtualization-datacore-software-sets-the-stage-for-virtualization-leadership-in-2011.aspx

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.

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

Software based Storage Virtualization is key to Cloud Performance

Current projects emphasize the growing need for high performance and highly available storage for the cloud. Case in point – DataCore Software recently implemented its SANsymphony™ software at Waterstons. This major IT service provider offers cloud hosting services from a purpose-built Tier 3 data center in the North of England. Based on Dell storage hardware, VMware and DataCore's SANsymphony software – configured in a redundant configuration, it offers all the high availability and resilience that Waterstons' high-end cloud hosting service requires. Through SANsymphony's built-in agility and thin-provisioning software, Waterstons' clients can access storage “on-the-fly” from the VMware server farm. Andrew Kershaw, Technical Director at Waterstons, explains, "Through our cloud-based service, we are able to offer new and innovative ways of supporting clients and solving their business and technology problems. With the VMware and DataCore combination, we can respond to demands extremely quickly and on a very flexible basis, which often is simply not the case with traditional infrastructure."
 
Host.net, one of the largest hosting services in the USA, delivers private cloud computing services for companies ranging from SMEs to large enterprises, utilizing a true software-based approach to attain the greatest flexibility and to deliver 100% uptime. "We chose VMware, DataCore and Cisco in the core design of our vPDC platform because each vendor delivers the very best virtualization component in their respective areas of competence," says Jeffrey Slapp, Vice President of Virtualization Services for Host.net. He states that many companies have signed on as new customers because of the competitive advantages they have achieved with this combination of technologies and architecture.

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.

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

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

DataCore Software Powers The Virtualization Infrastructure For Ahtna Government Services – Encompassing DataCore Storage Virtualization, VMware For Servers, And Citrix XenDesktops

http://www.govcon.com/article.mvc/DataCore-Software-Powers-The-0001?VNETCOOKIE=NO

"We have been a Citrix shop for some time and we recently decided to do our DataCore and our VMware virtualization implementations at the same time," states Chris Whitaker, Information Technology Manager, Ahtna Government Services. "The virtualization technologies all work hand-in-hand and they have drastically made our lives easier. The flexibility we have with DataCore powering our IT environment speaks for itself. With DataCore, we can apply storage to any server, any operating system, any piece of hardware, or to any desktop – when and where it is needed."

One important IT objective made possible by the newly virtualized environment is that the new infrastructure gave Ahtna the opportunity to accelerate putting many new systems into place earlier than was expected since no new hardware capital expenses were necessary. Not having to purchase hardware to complete projects that have been on the "Wish List," has meant these projects were indeed accomplished. With the virtual infrastructure and the disk space sitting behind DataCore, Ahtna's IT team did not have to purchase additional hardware to deploy new systems – because anything new is virtualized.

A Very Positive Impact on Operations: Desktop Virtualization and Server Virtualization Made Possible with DataCore

Whitaker comments, "Our goal is to build a non-stop datacenter and with DataCore we have a high-speed, synchronously mirrored, storage infrastructure now deployed at Ahtna along with VMware. Together they work in tandem to ensure a new level of uptime for our business." Whitaker adds that the mirrored systems have delivered as promised, providing data and VM redundancy. "The SANs do not go down on their own," he notes. "In fact, during a recent upgrade of DataCore storage virtualization software, the uptime on the server was so high, it was literally off the charts in terms of anything I could calculate."

Storage Virtualization SuperCast for Virtualization Review by Jon Toigo

http://www.drunkendata.com/?p=3233
"...DataCore uses a proxy Windows server to connect to the arrays, saving themselves the trouble of having to bake in special access to the APIs of each and every vendor. They have created a great kit (which I have used) and it promises to get even better with the release late this year or early next of SANsymphony V. (We have tested V in our labs and are writing a First Look paper on it that I may publish in Virtualization Review.)


...“if not on the array controller, where will you host all of that value-add software that most hardware vendors prefer to join to their rigs?” — he worried that I may be pursuing a deconstructionalist model that no one wants. In response, I just look at DataCore. They can do the thin provisioning and replication off box, while contributing significant performance improvements to the hardware beneath.

DataCore does NAS? DataCore Software Brings Unprecedented Storage Scalability, Performance and High-Availability to Microsoft Clustered File Shares, Hyper-V Failover Cluster CSVs and Metro Clusters

Spotlight on Customer Use Cases, High-Availability NAS and Cluster Best Practices

At the recent Microsoft Tech-Ed Europe 2010, DataCore Software, a leading provider of storage virtualization software, demonstrated major breakthroughs to enhance the availability, scalability and performance of Failover Clustering in Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 R2 with Hyper-V™. Several case studies and white papers are available to highlight how IT organizations can benefit operationally and financially from these joint solutions.

The two most common use cases for DataCore in Microsoft Failover Cluster scenarios involve virtualizing and mirroring storage resources across physically-separated storage devices for:

• Clustered Shared Volumes (CSVs)

• Clustered File Shares

Many DataCore customers at the event explained the technical aspects behind their real-world implementations. Featured among them was the Swiss-based hospital, Regionalspital Emmental (RSE) AG, where DataCore software fully virtualizes the shared storage infrastructure for RSE’s Exchange, SQL and medical applications. RSE operates 15 physical servers and over 50 virtual machines running on top of Hyper-V.

“Server virtualization from Microsoft Hyper-V combined with storage virtualization software from DataCore form an integral part of our IT strategy, significantly lowering costs for hardware, energy and administration,” states Falko Gieldanowski, Head of IT at RSE AG. "We are currently saving around 30% by better optimizing the use of our time and resources and from the resulting increase in productivity – and we anticipate further savings over the lifetime of our infrastructure."

What’s New: HA NAS - Eliminating Storage-related Downtime for Clustered File Shares

One of the topics that was spotlighted during Tech-Ed Europe 2010, was how to keep storage from becoming a single-point-of-failure for clustered file shares. DataCore explained how its software along with Microsoft's built-in capabilities could be combined to provide a true high-availability NAS capability, best of all no additional software or hardware are required to implement the capability. For more information and further details on how to achieve high-availability NAS, please contact: info@datacore.com.

Non-Stop Data Access: Virtualizing and Speeding-up SANs for CSVs
US-based Stockbridge Capital Group deploys DataCore storage virtualization software with Microsoft Hyper-V to meet their business continuity needs. Two synchronously- mirrored DataCore nodes keep the storage infrastructure, especially the CSVs, highly available to ensure non-stop data access from a cluster of seven (7) Hyper-V servers hosting over 25 virtual machines. Prior to virtualization, Stockbridge had well over 30 physical servers.

“DataCore’s storage virtualization solution offers all of the high-end features, including enterprise-class high availability, but at an affordable price,” comments Stephen Pilch, COO, Stockbridge. “DataCore software lets us easily leverage our investment in existing and new technologies and empower our virtual servers to meet non-stop business needs while fitting our budget. It is a perfect match for us.”

The virtualized storage configuration services the needs of Stockbridge’s Microsoft Exchange server along with the file repositories used by all their employees. “We were pleasantly surprised that the iSCSI SAN, because of DataCore, actually performed better than the existing fibre SAN, in terms of its speed and accessibility,” notes Cem Kursunoglu, president at BayNODE. Read the full story here.

Large Scale Metro Clusters Rely on Microsoft and DataCore
Continuum Health Partners ("Continuum") relies on DataCore SANsymphony™ software to virtualize and manage well over 200 Terabytes of storage for the various hospitals in the Continuum hospital network. The DataCore-powered infrastructure supports a community of 14,000 users on over five-hundred (500) servers with storage devices split between different locations in metropolitan New York.

"DataCore storage virtualization software is the key to the virtualization puzzle - offering the flexible storage virtualization dimension needed for any virtualization project - and serving as the perfect complement to server virtualization as well as the perfect enhancement to storage hardware," explains Jill Wojcik, IT Director at Continuum Health Partners.

Microsoft solutions running on the DataCore virtualized infrastructure at Continuum include: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Cluster Servers (MSCSs. For a more in-depth case study on this deployment, please visit: www.datacore.com/continuum .

To receive a white paper describing the techniques used to provide uninterrupted access to Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs) by synchronously mirroring across storage devices split between hot-hot sites, please download it at: www.datacore.com/metroclusters .

Stockbridge Capital Group Deploys DataCore Storage Virtualization Software with Microsoft Hyper-V to Meet Their Non-Stop Business Needs

For more info, see: Virtualization infrastructure enables Stockbridge to ensure business continuity via high availability, reduce physical footprint of servers and scale their storage on-demand
Stockbridge Capital Group, LLC (“Stockbridge”) has deployed and realized significant IT operations and business benefits from implementing Microsoft Hyper-V Server and DataCore for server and storage virtualization, respectively.

“The thing we have found about DataCore’ storage virtualization solution is that it offers all of the high-end features, including enterprise-class high availability, but at an affordable price,” states Stephen Pilch, COO, Stockbridge. “We are a midsize company, with enterprise needs. We have offices all around the country and we need to be running non-stop 24 by 7. DataCore’s software lets us easily leverage our investment in existing and new technologies and empower our virtual servers to meet non-stop business needs while fitting our budget. It is a perfect match for us.”

BayNODE, an Information Technology consulting firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area, worked with Stockbridge on the design, implementation and on-going management of the overall virtualized IT infrastructure. BayNODE was already in the process of virtualizing a number of different servers at Stockbridge into Microsoft Hyper-V Cluster environments. Also, an IBM fibre channel SAN solution was already in place to handle some of the SAN-related tasks. However, the company was in dire need of a highly available SAN solution – ideally an iSCSI solution – that could get the job done. With a limited IT budget, BayNODE started looking around for all possible options. It was also imperative that any solution could also leverage the hardware investments that were already in place. It was soon after their research started that BayNODE found DataCore.

The virtualized infrastructure now supports Microsoft Exchange server and the file repository for use by all employees. BayNODE, the consulting advisor, is now in process of taking the Exchange 2007 Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) setup and moving it from a cluster to a single Exchange server located on a Microsoft Hyper-V Cluster, which was impractical to do without DataCore.

For now, two DataCore-powered SAN servers are synchronously mirrored to one another, keeping the systems highly available and delivering business continuity, and the applications as well as the data is replicated by Neverfail, which serves as the DR component. Seven (7) Hyper-V hosts are running currently at Stockbridge and there are over 25 virtual servers spread across these nodes. As you would expect, the footprint of physical servers has shrunk drastically. Prior to virtualization Stockbridge had well over 30 physical servers; this number has been cut down to 12. The two DataCore high availability nodes run on IBM x3550 servers using external storage that is managed, pooled and networked where and when needed by the DataCore storage virtualization software.

Along with DataCore storage virtualization for shared storage, the CSVs allow all the nodes (the hosts) that are part of the Microsoft Hyper-V Cluster access to the same SAN resource at the same time – there is no “passive-active.” All nodes access the SAN resource at the same time. The CSV technology uses either fibre or iSCSI-based SANs. Because Stockbridge already had the fibre resource in place, they wanted to add DataCore’s iSCSI SAN to support the CSVs as well. “We were pleasantly surprised that the iSCSI SAN because of DataCore actually performed better than the fibre SAN, in terms of its speed and accessibility,” notes Kursunoglu.

Scalability and Ease of Use Win the Day
According to BayNODE’s president, the beauty of DataCore lies in its ability to get up and running in just a couple of days – encompassing all aspects of the implementation. “Of particular benefit to us as a partner and Stockbridge as a customer is the scalability of the product,” explains Kursunoglu. “It saves so much money compared to what you would otherwise have to pay for more capacity through a hardware-only approach. We can scale and grow DataCore as we wish, on-demand, and we can thin-provision our capacity needs. DataCore gives so much power in terms of flexibility and scalability – I cannot even put a price on it.”

Stockbridge and affiliates have over a hundred people spread across the country who rely on the company’s IT systems. BayNODE essentially serves as the outsourced IT arm for Stockbridge. “Customers trust us to manage all types of IT environments and operations and Stockbridge is no exception,” states Kursunoglu. “We serve as the internal IT team for Stockbridge – with engineers onsite. Our responsibilities include budgeting, operations, implementation, maintenance, consulting – everything.”

Stockbridge has multiple offices across the country and is headquartered in San Francisco. The company manages real estate investment portfolios with properties throughout the United States.

About Stockbridge Capital Group

Stockbridge is a real estate investment management firm and Registered Investment Advisor founded in 2003 with approximately $4.4 billion of real estate assets under management. The firm manages both commingled funds and separate accounts primarily on behalf of institutional investors, and also provides strategic advisory services with respect to real estate assets and portfolios. Its portfolio includes investments across the investment risk spectrum, including core, value-added and opportunistic strategies.

Educational Institutions of All Sizes Benefit from DataCore Virtualization Software at the Heart of Their Virtualization Infrastructure

Educational program and discounts up to 50% help foster academic institutions of all sizes benefit from DataCore Virtualization Infrastructure Software for their storage

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.

Customer Testimonials in Education

Virtualizing storage resources means that institutions 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.

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

Scottsdale Community College –

“Virtual computing has transformed our entire IT organization – the way we deliver services, the way we support them, and the way our end users consume them. Our previous SAN solution was a bottleneck in this environment and we needed a more high-performing solution. DataCore storage virtualization is a key component to the stability and performance of our virtual computing environment.”
- Dustin Fennell, Vice President of IT and CIO, Scottsdale Community College

Barren County Schools –

“For all intents and purposes, we are 100% virtual. The biggest benefit for us was realizing a virtualized data infrastructure. Because we adopted storage virtualization, we now can deploy any storage hardware behind our environment that we want. Beyond this – with DataCore we were able to repurpose old equipment.”
- Steve Gumm, IT director, Barren County Schools.

Read full case study: www.datacore.com/barrencounty

Lakota Local Schools –

“With a continually growing enterprise dependent on network based solutions, DataCore allowed us to implement a virtual infrastructure at a fraction of the cost and support of other storage solutions. As a result, we were able to virtualize several central systems, resulting in power, cooling and space savings as well as add additional redundancy.”- Todd Wesley, Network Operations Administrator for Lakota Local Schools.

Read full case study: www.datacore.com/lakota

Rocklin Unified School District –

“We had to put in place a virtual storage network that had the agility to keep up, while also providing the needed fault tolerant failover protection to safeguard our storage and maximize overall system uptime. Now, we have rolled out a new VMware and Citrix infrastructure in support of our applications. And DataCore is the underlying foundation for all of it.”
- Glenn Baker, Systems Engineer, Rocklin Unified School District.

Read full case study: www.datacore.com/rocklin

Saginaw Intermediate School District –

“We were also really won over by the fact that DataCore is an affordable solution for achieving high availability. And the transition from physical to virtual was seamless – nobody even knew it happened. Through DataCore thin-provisioning, we were able to migrate the servers we needed to, during the day, without causing any downtime to a school district.”
- Jeff Johnson, Director of Technical Services, Saginaw Intermediate School District

Read full case study: www.datacore.com/saginaw
For more information, contact a DataCore partner for details or go to http://www.datacore.com/education .

DataCore Software and Fusion-io Technology Alliance Partnership; Customers Realize Performance Gains and Energy Savings

This week Fusion-io launched its Fusion-io Technology Alliance Program. DataCore Software is pleased to be a Fusion-io Technology Alliance Partner. Fusion-io’s solid state storage solutions combined with DataCore storage virtualization software achieve new levels of performance, high availability and energy efficiency when the two technologies are deployed together. Customers that are implementing Fusion-io as a server class memory tier across DataCore-powered storage area networks are experiencing unprecedented levels of I/O performance through tiered caching. One example of this is the German company NIEDAX GROUP, which is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of electrical installation equipment.


NIEDAX GROUP utilizes DataCore to accelerate storage performance along with high speed NAND flash memory from Fusion-io for its private cloud service. DataCore’s storage virtualization software takes advantage of server RAM memory to cache and accelerate storage I/Os, while the flash memory from Fusion-io acts as another tier of high-speed memory to further accelerate performance for critical applications.

DataCore’s technology enables effective sharing of these devices across the storage pool and provides the ability to use SAN-wide features across different vendor hardware arrays and devices. Thus it is a very cost-effective way to fully utilize all the storage available and to mirror and protect data. According to Oliver Bauer, Team Leader Administration/IT at NIEDAX GROUP. "We gained tremendous performance from adding DataCore and Fusion-io and overall we reduced our energy and cooling costs."

For a more in-depth overview of DataCore and Fusion-io at NIEDAX GROUP, see:
DataCore_Virtualizes_FusionIO_Solid_State_Disks_SSDs_and_HP_Storage_Arrays_into_a_High_Performance_and_Energy_Efficient_SAN_for_NIEDAX_GROUP

For more on DataCore Software and Fusion-io at NIEDAX GROUP, check out the following videos from VMworld TV: http://siliconangle.tv/search/node/george%20teixeira

VMworld 2010 Europe: DataCore Software Eliminates Business Outages in VMware VIEW and vSphere Environments; Showcases Growing Base of VMware and DataCore Customer Successes

DataCore's software-based storage virtualization and high-availability approach is key to cloud-based and virtualized IT environments
COPENHAGEN –  At VMworld Europe 2010, DataCore Software is providing insights into new developments and highlights a growing number of applications and solutions being deployed at customer sites in conjunction with DataCore’s VMware-certified storage virtualization platforms. DataCore is highlighting the seamless integration of complementary technologies for private and public cloud computing. In addition, DataCore is showcasing cost-effective customer SAN deployments – virtualized with DataCore and VMware vSphere and VIEW – that are proven to meet the demands for virtual server and virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs) that need high-availability, fast performance and archival solutions.

"At VMworld Europe 2010, cloud, desktop and storage virtualization are high on the agenda of attending end users and solution providers. The greater flexibility and high performance requirements for storage in virtual desktop infrastructures are also usually associated with high costs that can jeopardize the completion of virtualization and consolidation projects,” says Christian Hagen, Vice President of EMEA Channel & Sales Operations at DataCore Software. "DataCore overcomes the cost barrier. Our software solutions enable the integration of existing and new storage regardless of the underlying brand of storage hardware. The software revalues existing storage devices with the highest reliability and performance and transforms it into cost-efficient, flexible, shared storage – especially for VDI environments and other critical applications. We are seeing strong demand for our cost-effective solutions in this area."

Storage Virtualization Software is Key to Cloud Performance
Current projects emphasize the growing need for high performance and highly available storage for the cloud. Case in point – DataCore Software recently implemented its SANsymphony™ software at Waterstons. This major IT service provider offers cloud hosting services from a purpose-built Tier 3 data center in the North of England. Based on Dell storage hardware, VMware and DataCore's SANsymphony software – configured in a redundant configuration, it offers all the high availability and resilience that Waterstons' high-end cloud hosting service requires. Through SANsymphony's built-in agility and thin-provisioning software, Waterstons' clients can access storage “on-the-fly” from the VMware server farm. Andrew Kershaw, Technical Director at Waterstons, explains, "Through our cloud-based service, we are able to offer new and innovative ways of supporting clients and solving their business and technology problems. With the VMware and DataCore combination, we can respond to demands extremely quickly and on a very flexible basis, which often is simply not the case with traditional infrastructure."

Host.net, one of the largest hosting services in the USA, delivers private cloud computing services for companies ranging from SMEs to large enterprises, utilizing a true software-based approach to attain the greatest flexibility and to deliver 100% uptime. "We chose VMware, DataCore and Cisco in the core design of our vPDC platform because each vendor delivers the very best virtualization component in their respective areas of competence," says Jeffrey Slapp, Vice President of Virtualization Services for Host.net. He states that many companies have signed on as new customers because of the competitive advantages they have achieved with this combination of technologies and architecture.

The German NIEDAX GROUP, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of electrical installation equipment, utilizes DataCore to accelerate storage performance along with high speed NAND flash memory from Fusion-io for its private cloud service. The software takes advantage of server RAM memory to cache and accelerate storage I/Os, while the flash memory from Fusion-io acts as another tier of high-speed memory to further accelerate performance for critical applications. The software approach enables effective sharing of these devices across the storage pool and provides the ability to use SAN-wide features across different vendor hardware arrays and devices. Thus it is a very cost-effective way to fully utilize all the storage available and to mirror and protect all the data. "We are happy with our DataCore investment and we are benefiting from the many functional and financial benefits of putting it in use," states Oliver Bauer, Team Leader Administration/IT at NIEDAX GROUP. "We gained tremendous performance from adding DataCore and Fusion-io SSDs and overall we reduced our energy and cooling costs."

Compliance and Virtual Archives with DataCore and iTernity
At VMworld Europe 2010, DataCore continues to work with and integrate with an ever- growing base of important applications that impact the storage environments. A flexible and independent virtualization software layer is a prerequisite for value-added applications and functions such as archival and compliance software. Successfully tested and proven in a number of joint customer projects, DataCore’s SANmelody™ and SANsymphony™ have been deployed successfully in conjunction with iTernity™ Compliant Archive Solution (iCAS™) in a certified architecture that supports long-term archiving.

With the DataCore and iTernity solutions, users are able to obtain an expandable, secure and cost-efficient archiving solution that meets regulatory compliance and archival demands in VMware virtual environments.

VMworld 2010 Europe takes place at the Bella Center Copenhagen, Denmark from Oct 12th – 14th. Meet the DataCore experts for virtualization at booth No. 81.

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  .

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.”

Why I use DataCore - Host.net; VMworld Videos, DataCore Real World Virtualization and Fujitsu & DataCore Partnership

You Tube Video - Why I use DataCore: Host.net:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIKsiEgUbhw

VMworld 2010 Video: Storage Tiering and Flash Performance - DataCore CEO Talks Virtualization, Tiered Storage and Flash Performance
http://www.siliconangle.tv/video/storage-tiering-and-flash-performance-george-teixeira-talks-virtualization-tiered-storage-and-/

Computer Technology Review features DataCore Real World Virtualization Case Studies:
http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=255&Itemid=2701573

American Society of Health-System Pharmacists deploys DataCore Software with VMware to maintain uptime and business continuity
http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9082:vmworld-2010-american-society-of-health-system-pharmacists-deploys-datacore-software-with-vmware-to-maintain-uptime-and-business-continuity&catid=232:disaster-recovery&Itemid=2701196

Fujitsu & DataCore Coverage:

ChannelPros: DataCore Software and Fujitsu Technology Solutions Validate Integration of Products
http://www.channelprosmb.com/article/20444/DataCore-Software-and-Fujitsu-Technology-Solutions-Validate-Integration-of-Products/

SearchStorage: Fujitsu bundles DataCore storage virtualization software
DataCore Software Corp. said Fujitsu has validated its SANsymphony storage virtualization software, and Fujitsu will sell the integrated DataCore software on its Eternus storage systems and Primergy servers. http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid5_gci1519941,00.html

Fujitsu UK Web site: Fujitsu Maximises Flexibility Of Storage Architectures With DataCore Storage Virtualisation
http://www.fujitsu.com/uk/news/pr/fs_20100909-01.html

Fujitsu German Blog: More flexibility for Storage architectures with DataCore Storage Virtualization
http://blog.de.ts.fujitsu.com/?p=1416
Fujitsu is now offering its server and storage systems with integrated storage virtualization software from DataCore. This makes the transition to virtualized storage pool architectures greatly simplified.

Network Computing: Fujitsu Maximizes Business Continuity And Flexibility Of Cloud Storage Architectures With DataCore Storage Virtualization
http://www.networkcomputing.com/storage-networking-management/datacore-software-fujitsu-maximizes-business-continuity-and-flexibility-of-cloud-storage-architectur.php

DataCore Software and Fujitsu
http://www.pr-inside.com/datacore-software-fujitsu-r2104801.htm

SNS -UK: Fujitsu maximises flexibility of storage architectures with DataCore storage virtualisation
http://www.sns-uk.co.uk/news_full.php?id=15628

Spanish: Fujitsu maximiza la flexibilidad de las arquitecturas de almacenamiento Cloud con DataCore Storage Virtualization
http://www.infomercados.com/actualidad/noticia/ibero-news/fujitsu-maximiza-la-flexibilidad-de-las-arquitecturas-de-almacenamiento-cloud-con-dat-/20100913/31874/i/

French: Fujitsu optimise sa continuité d’activité avec DataCore
http://informaticien.be/articles_item-8366-Fujitsu_optimise_sa_continuite_drsquoactivite.html

German: Flexible Storage Clouds: "Fujitsu Eternus"- und "Primergy"-Systeme für "DataCore SANsymphony"
http://www.itseccity.de/?url=/content/markt/channel-news/100914_mar_cha_datacore.html

Fujitsu Maximizes Business Continuity and Flexibility of Cloud Storage Architectures with DataCore

Fujitsu has validated the integration of its data center storage and server systems with DataCore storage virtualization software, in order to minimize the risks for enterprises switching to virtualized and cloud storage architectures.

Jens-Peter Seick, Senior Vice President Product Division Datacenter Systems at Fujitsu Technology Solutions states, “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 customized to our customers’ ever-changing needs - via a single source.”

Initially available in Europe within Austria, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, the pre-tested and qualified solutions combining Fujitsu ETERNUS and PRIMERGY with DataCore SANsymphony are available immediately via local distributors. With the Fujitsu and DataCore combination, customers can easily provision storage within their cloud infrastructures in real-time, while improving business continuity by removing single points of failure. DataCore adds a new level of high-availability and makes it possible to move data and virtual machines as needed, where needed in a true cloud storage architecture.

Christian Hagen, Vice President EMEA at DataCore Software comments, “The combined Fujitsu and DataCore solutions enable our two customer bases 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 highly-available platform for dynamic storage available on demand and optimized for cloud storage architectures.”
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

Virtualization Journal: http://virtualization.sys-con.com/node/1526234

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
More International Coverage:

Germany: http://www.all-about-security.de/security-artikel/speicherung/speichersysteme/artikel/11525-fujitsu-bietet-mehr-flexibilitaet-fuer-storage-architekturen-m/

Fujitsu's German Blog: http://cpp-plus.de.ts.fujitsu.com/blog/

UK: http://www.it-director.com/channels/distribution/news_release.php?rel=19981

Italy: http://www.storage-backup.com/datacore/integrazione-certificata-tra-datacore-sansymphony-e-fujitsu-eternus-e-primergy/

France: http://datacore-virtualisation-stockage.blogspot.com/2010/09/fujitsu-optimise-sa-continuite.html

Poland: http://www.virtual-it.pl/aktualnosci/1-latest/1483-integracja-eternus-i-primergy-z-datacore-sansymphony.html

Russia: http://www3.una.ua/?p=3654

VMworld 2010 Photos - DataCore Storage Virtualization Software Makes Clouds Happy!

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 solution providers and partners onsite include Grove Networks, HelixStorm, Red Level Networks, Sanity Solutions, The Mirazon Group and DataCore's value-add distributor Lifeboat Distribution.

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."