DataCore Virtual Capacity Surpasses IBM and HDS Storage Virtualization
Wednesday, 29 December 2004Virtual capacity eliminates "out of disk space" warnings that force users to
shut down systems just to add more disks. Users also want industry best price
performance and the flexibility and freedom of choice to buy latest open
market disks to avoid being locked-in to specific storage vendor offerings.
Recent users such as Bitburger Brewery, LG Electronics, Lufthansa, and
Hunterdon Healthcare have all touted the benefits of having choice and
flexibility in managing and protecting mixed IBM, HDS, EMC and HP storage
using DataCore software. DataCore has taken the next logical step forward in
storage virtualization. DataCore's automatic "Virtual Capacity" capability is
now being made available on DataCore's SANmelody(TM) disk server platforms.
This powerful breakthrough in open storage management and provisioning
surpasses the competition and dramatically lowers the price point so that
storage users can finally afford to experience the compelling productivity,
time savings and lower cost benefits of automated "Virtual Capacity" -- the
industry's true open storage virtualization.
"Virtualization technologies have been all the rage in storage, as vendors
have been looking for unique ways to help users manage and provision disk
storage with greater efficiency. IBM's recent SAN Volume Controller, HDS
TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform and EMC's recent announcements have
rekindled interest but they still haven't delivered on the promise of
virtualization. The lack of true automation, the unwillingness of vendors to
break their lock-in features -- allowing open hardware purchasing flexibility,
and the high prices being charged have made these solutions far too costly and
impractical for most companies," stated George Teixeira, CEO DataCore Software.
"DataCore's powerful 'virtual capacity', openness to hardware choice, and new
pricing combine to break down these barriers."
DataCore's powerful auto-provisioning capability lets users serve up
massively large logical disk volumes, sized from gigabytes to terabytes. To
application servers, these 'virtual capacity' disk volumes are simple to use
since they appear, perform and work just like any other locally attached disk.
The difference is that the actual physical disk capacity is drawn from a
storage pool on an as-needed basis therefore ensuring optimal disk space
utilization. Setting up disks that grow automatically is simple and requires
just a single command. "Virtual capacity" volumes work not just over fibre
channel SAN networks but also on existing IP/LAN-based infrastructures using
iSCSI storage networking.
"The current manual approaches for provisioning storage often require
hours not seconds to create volumes and make them available to an application
or an end user. Many of the newer virtualization products on the market
require users to lock in to a specific hardware vendor's 'solution set' and
concerns remain over whose hardware can be included in the hardware-based
virtualization scheme. DataCore's approach is superior. I am hard pressed to
think of any other storage software vendor who offers anything close in terms
of giving users so much choice on which vendor's disks and hardware to use,"
says Jon William Toigo, renowned storage author, IT consumer advocate and CEO
of Toigo Partners International in Tampa Bay, FL."
DataCore's "just enough space just-in-time" - Reducing Costs and
Maximizing Productivity
"DataCore's virtual capacity is a major leap forward. You now can defeat
the 'running out of space' downtime problem and avoid the 'guesswork' cost of
over buying storage. This innovation truly automates the process of storage
provisioning and delivers dramatic improvements in utilization." - John
Padovano, Manager of Technology for EngenderHealth.
Divorcing capacity allocation from physical disk constraints using
DataCore software returns five important cost reduction and productivity
benefits:
1. Disk utilization is maximized since all free space remains in the
global storage pool.
2. Applications only occupy space they are really using. This
effectively stretches storage budgets by 60-70% which could more than
pay for the introduction of DataCore software.
3. Critical applications run undisturbed as their capacity requirements
climb. Unlike conventional approaches in which adding storage causes
application downtime and user interruption.
4. IT personnel no longer spend time responding to disk re-allocation
and resizing requests.
5. Capacity planners have a much better understanding of their total
disk needs to properly address long-range provisioning.
Said differently, business applications run smoother, more predictably and
cost less to operate and maintain after the introduction of DataCore's unique
"Virtual Capacity" capability.
Open Storage Choices - Maximum Flexibility
"Aside from performance, one of the distinct advantages that was
instrumental in my buying decision was the flexibility DataCore provided - it
runs on standard servers, uses any disk from any vendor, works over iSCSI,
Fibre Channel or both, and it can serve up virtual capacity efficiently to a
wide variety of Windows, Novell, Linux, and Unix application systems" - Ann
Schneider, IT department, CPA firm Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer, P.C., Norfolk,
Virgina.
Source: PR Newswire
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