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Software-defined storage specialist DataCore announced the launch of its Ready Software-Defined Storage (SDS) software, running on Dell PowerEdge servers.
DataCore’s SANsymphony-V software works with Dell’s PowerEdge servers and a range of Dell Storage MD Series, SC Series and PS Series arrays.
The DataCore software makes it possible to add PowerEdge performance acceleration to the pool of heterogeneous storage systems, support features such as metrowide stretch mirroring for business continuance, as well as simplified migration and workload mobility from traditional storage systems to new platforms.
DataCore software solutions enable once-isolated storage systems–from flash and disks located within servers, to external SAN arrays and public cloud storage–to become part of an enterprisewide accessible virtual pool, classified into tiers according to their unique characteristics.
Different brands of storage, standalone converged systems and hypervisor-dependent Virtual SANs and external storage systems no longer need to exist as islands.
Instead, they can be integrated within an overall storage infrastructure. The system administrator can provision capacity, maximize utilization and set high-level policies to allow the software to select the most appropriate storage tier and paths to achieve the desired levels of performance and availability.
“Enterprises are experiencing significant challenges associated with storage, including increasing pressure to maintain uninterrupted service, the need to scale with increasing capacity demands, and more onerous IT data retention policies,” George Teixeira, president and CEO of DataCore, told eWEEK. “In addition, the cost and performance of where data is stored matters, especially when we consider what storage we put in the cloud, and how we use more expensive flash storage–this all adds to the growing complexity. To top it all off, IT managers need to work within ever-diminishing IT budgets.”
The software runs in the data path and has visibility to all the read and write traffic generated by applications. It can also take advantage of the PowerEdge high-speed x86-64 processors, on board DRAM memory and Dell flash based SSD cards to turn around requests quickly, while automatically tiering and moving data between spinning disks, flash and across different storage platforms.
DataCore also provides automation, monitoring and reporting tools, and data can also be mirrored in real-time between different types and brands of storage systems across metrowide distances to maintain continuous availability to business applications despite equipment failures and site outages.
The company’s Virtual SAN also works with all major hypervisors (including VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V) and many popular storage offerings, Teixeira noted.
“While technical alternatives exist from competitors, they often prove prohibitively expensive except for the most affluent of IT organizations, and suffer from large recurring costs,” he said. “DataCore offers affordable solutions that take full advantages of resources already in use. Furthermore, the advanced software services endure as underlying storage hardware is replaced, to eliminate the wasteful rip-and-replace processes which drive up costs.”