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Storage management software firm StorMagic, based in Eden Prairie, Minn., released StorMagic SvSAN, a storage virtual appliance the company said would help small to medium-size businesses (SMBs) quickly build a cost-effective virtual storage area network (SAN) for less than $2,000. A promotion for the announcement allows SMBs to obtain a promo key for a free copy of SvSAN, with no expiration date, by contacting StorMagic or one of its resellers.
“Our customers’ IT budgets are still shrinking while their data needs continue to grow,” says StorMagic vice president of marketing Mike Stolz. “With SvSAN, we are enabling these organizations to create, manage, and provision storage in their VMware environments through a highly affordable and easy-to-use console.”
Add-on features include active-active mirroring for high-availability and capacity management upgrades. By turning unused storage capacity into a virtual SAN, the solution is designed to enable users to take advantage of high-end features of VMware environments such as VMware VMotion, without the need for an external SAN. SvSAN is also designed to work with VMware vCenter, so that administrators are able to manage data stores, the StorMagic iSCSI SAN and the internal RAID controller from one interface.
Gavin Murrill, network administrator at Make-A-Wish Foundation, says a simple software download and integrated management made things a lot easier for the non-profit organization. “The StorMagic SvSAN pretty much takes control of our storage, leveraging internal storage resources,” he says. “We can now easily and cost-effectively build a highly available environment without the complexity of traditional systems.”
Louisville, Tenn.-based systems builder Personal Computer Systems, Inc.’s director of sales and business development Mike Asbury says he is looking forward to offering their customers a “unique experience” that gives SMBs access to enterprise-class features they didn’t know they could have at such a low price point. Asbury points out the promotional copies are not evaluation copies, but licensed versions of SvSAN. “[It’s] a great way to provide users the functionality they need today, with an upgrade path that allows them to scale non-disruptively as their needs increase,” he says.
SvSAN is available through channel partners starting at $995 for a single virtual appliance license and 2 Terabyte capacity management license. StorMagic also offers a high availability option for $995, with capacity management licenses are available for 4TB, 8TB and unlimited data storage.