DataCore Launches New $2K SAN Starter Packages

As we have often reported here at eWEEK during 2008, enterprise storage software and hardware pricing continues to be very competitive and on a downward slope.

DataCore became the latest provider to announce new products along with pricing incentives on Dec. 30 when it launched a new line of full-featured SAN (storage area network) software starter packages aimed at the small and midsize business market.

The Fort Lauderdale, Fla., vendor joined a list of companies that include Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, NetApp, Hitachi Data Systems, 3Par and Data Domain that have lowered pricing in the last 12 months.

In virtual server and desktop environments, DataCore President and CEO George Teixeira said, the new DataCore products automate failover/failback recovery, network connectivity (iSCSI, Fibre Channel or both) and fault tolerance.

"Two critical elements necessary for safe and effective virtualization have remained out of reach for SMBs: SANs to consolidate and manage storage, and business continuity solutions to assure that consolidation works for you and not against you," Teixeira said. "SMBs need something that does both and does it at the right price."

The high cost and complexity of traditional SAN storage required to support virtual servers and desktops puts it out of the reach for many SMBs, Teixeira said.

"Our new packages fill the gap between low-end, Windows system replication solutions that provide limited single-system data protection [e.g., Double-Take Software] for VMs at a cost of thousands and higher-end, enterprise-class storage arrays and SAN that provide necessary protection but are complex and often cost $100,000 or more," Teixeira said.

DataCore's new software packages work in SAN setups with Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix, Virtual Iron, Parallels, VMware, and other server and desktop virtualization environments.

For more details on DataCore's SAN starter packages for SMBs, go here.