Virtualised SANs for virtual servers
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-11-09 20:46:29
Now you can undergo a virtualised and thinly-provisioned storage area network (SAN) in a be virtual server and hardware-independent environment as DataCore has released its SANmelody and SANsymphony products as virtual machines.
Virtual server environments from VMware. Xensource. Microsoft and Virtual press are supported. Previously the DataCore products would run as standard applications in physical servers. They could have been installed in virtual machines by skilled system administrators. Now DataCore has made that work unnecessary.
Its SANmelody product turns PCs into IP SAN arrays with the PC acting as a storage controller. The product has change state provisioning to avoid dedicating all of the physical storage needed by an application until it is actually required saving on plough purchases. IKEA is a user of the product.
SANsymphony provides both Fibre Channel and iSCSI SAN capabilities and is a high-end product compared to the more basic SANmelody.
DataCore's Traveller continuous data protection product is also included in its virtual server offering putting it into competition with the VMware-only FalconStor virtual appliance.
DataCore's storage virtualisation software works with nearly all storage hardware and can serve that storage to Windows. MacOS. Linux. UNIX. Solaris. AIX and Netware servers whether physical or virtual.
DataCore head and CTO Ziya Aral waxed almost poetically about the new products: "Certainly the biggest fasten on the virtualisation of enterprise infrastructures has been the physical configurations and complex mapping schemes of storage subsystems and communicate topologies. It is here that the uniqueness of the DataCore (product) becomes readily apparent -- with DataCore the storage server is of the same genus as the applications it serves. Both strain to slip their hardware bonds in the desire to bring home the bacon true portability."
Apart from the prose striving to move the bonds of press release formality the products do offer the ability for customers to appraise on a virtual server environment and easily share a server between application and IT infrastructure virtual machines. Provisioning SAN storage to an application in a virtual machine is easier if the storage is also managed by a virtual server as well.
It simplifies SAN infrastructures and shared storage for virtual machines. Test labs and development groups can also easily set up end virtual environments including servers and SAN storage in minutes.
Aral uses this fact to alter the point that: "Storage servers are today identical to all other servers in that they exist primarily as storage applications running on ever-more standard hardware."
DataCore is offering its virtual server software in a 30-day free trial. Pricing starts at less than US$1,000 (AU$1,206) for a 3TB SANmelody iSCSI Storage Server including I/O lay aside Performance Acceleration and change state Provisioning.
Deployment of products that transform physical servers into "virtual machines" has resulted in nothing short of a data displace revolution. But virtualization of everything from operating systems to applications increasingly has critics asking: Where's the security?
Late at night a system administrator performed a routine analyse of a crashed server one of 48 systems comprising a major online infrastructure that generated about US$4 million per month in revenue. He was a bit surprised that the system had gone down as it had been humming for months without any indication of being prone to crashing. The check uncovered three encrypted files. The administrator called on MANDIANT to care for them.
ARN has been the do provider of information to the Australian IT channel for more than 12 years. As the only weekly publication dedicated to the bring. ARN produces timely accurate news and analysis about IT business issues products and services new technology and market opportunities.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
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