DataCore SANsymphony-V Storage App Adds Scalability, Performance

Storage software developer DataCore Software this week enhanced its SANsymphony-V storage virtualization application with increased scalability, better performance, and improved functionality across virtualized environments.

Improving the scalability and performance of SANsymphony-V R9.0.4, combined with its ability to work across multiple storage platforms, ensures the application continues to be at the forefront of the push toward software-defined storage, said Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing for Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based DataCore.

SANsymphony-V hides the nuances of storage in multivendor environments with a single application that brings advanced functionality to arrays that previously did not have them, Gonzalez said.

[Related: Software-Defined Storage: Separating The Reality From The Hype ]

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"Customers just have to learn the DataCore platform once," he said. "It removes the layer of complexity and gives customers the rare opportunity to have a mixed environment."

Gonzalez said he is grateful for EMC's May introduction of its software-defined technology ViPR, which helped open the door for the technology in a way many smaller vendors could not do.

"It's a new approach to storage actually introduced by the biggest storage vendor, EMC and its ViPR," he said. "Before that, no hardware guys would bring up the idea of doing something outside the array. It was a big taboo. Now they're saying they can do it. It plays right into the hands of DataCore."

DataCore is delivering on the concept of software-defined storage, said Dan Molina, CTO of Nth Generation Computing, a San Diego-based solution provider and long-time DataCore partner.

"DataCore is very server-agnostic and storage-agnostic," Molina said. "It provides enterprise-grade storage across any platform. SANsymphony-V can give any storage device like an X-IO ISE device or a Hewlett-Packard MSA2000 array enterprise-class functionality."

The new version of SANsymphony-V doubles the maximum number of nodes, which are industry-standard servers that can address a common pool of storage, to 16 nodes, Gonzalez said. The next version of SANsymphony-V will double that maximum again, he said.

"Businesses are spreading out their infrastructure to put data closer to the computing resources," he said. "This is causing a major push on scale-out storage. SANsymphony-V segregates the quality of service by separating what appears to be one pool of storage across multiple nodes."

That doubling of scalability is huge, Molina said. "You can now support any enterprise with that kind of scalability," he said. "And because DataCore uses its own clustering technology, we know it's been tested thoroughly."

NEXT: Offloading Storage Functions, Unused Space Reclamation And More

Also new with DataCore SANsymphony-V is the ability to offload many storage functions from the server host, DataCore's Gonzalez said.

This allows use of the ODX (offloaded data transfer) capability, which in advanced storage arrays allows many storage features to be processed on the array rather than in the server to free the server processor for other tasks, to be done using low-cost arrays that do not have ODX capabilities, he said.

He cited the reclamation of unused storage capacity as an example.

"Imagine creating a big file containing photos, then deleting it," he said. "Often that becomes wasted space with nothing in it. With ODX, the host can tell the DataCore software to reclaim that space and make it available to use, and not remain stranded."

DataCore SANsymphony-V now also includes self-healing capabilities so that storage hardware that is failed or taken out of service is seen by the software and the data volumes on such hardware is migrated elsewhere in a non-disruptive fashion.

The software also now allows non-disruptive movement of virtual disks between different storage pools, change-control management and audit logs for error prevention, fast troubleshooting, and faster replication of data to improve disaster recovery, Gonzalez said.

PUBLISHED OCT. 30, 2013