DataCore Announces Portable, Feature-Packed VM Starter SAN That Runs on VMware, Microsoft, Oracle, SUN, and Citrix XenServer Virtualization Platforms, Hardware Servers and Blades

Business Wire, Dec 31, 2007

VM-ready out-of-the-box, feature-packed VM Starter SAN delivers true hardware portability, supports thin provisioning, SANmotion, performance acceleration, high availability and disaster recovery, and comes with "Carry Forward Investment Protection"

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- DataCore Software, the leading provider of storage virtualization SAN software, today announced that it has brought to market a new, iSCSI-enabled, VM Starter SAN package. This feature-packed version of DataCore's SANmelody comes bundled and ready-to-use. Priced around $4,000 (per SAN server), the VM Starter SAN bundle includes auto-allocating thin provisioning storage support, SANmotion data migration technology, high performance caching software, snapshots for fast disk backups, auto failover/failback data protection via synchronous network mirroring as well as remote site disaster recovery support through asynchronous IP mirror replication. The DataCore VM Starter SAN provides the simplest and most affordable way on the market to get started realizing the cost savings and productivity benefits of a fully featured, virtual SAN.

Market Impact

No other vendor makes embracing storage virtualization as easy and as risk-free as DataCore does, period. Many vendors are talking about 'one off' virtual appliances. DataCore software is portable - offering the best out-of-the-box experience on the market, whereby any DataCore solution runs on any physical or virtual hardware of choice: hardware servers, blade servers or VMs. Users can mix-and-match any hardware in their deployments. Moreover, with DataCore all major VM vendors are supported - VMware, Oracle, Citrix, Sun, Microsoft, etc. DataCore not only runs on these VM environments, but the virtual storage from the DataCore SAN can be consolidated and served to MacOS, Netware, Linux, and the many flavors of UNIX and Microsoft - providing optimum storage resource utilization. The new VM Starter SAN resets the industry price point for SAN functionality and storage virtualization. Moreover, as with any of DataCore's solutions, an investment in the VM Starter SAN can be credited towards future upgrades - providing unprecedented investment protection.

An entry point for true High Availability, fail-safe data protection and Disaster Recovery - in one package

"We make it simple for users to get a fully functional SAN at an affordable price. The major SANmelody features are now integrated together in a series of feature-packed, easy-to-use, single server bundles," said George Teixeira, president and CEO, DataCore Software. "The VM Starter SAN package is value-packed. It's the ideal way to make storage virtual, portable, mobile and flexible so that it can fully complement and protect virtual servers."

A single VM Starter SAN is value-packed and can thin provision storage capacity, migrate data via SANmotion, accelerate storage performance, and create high-speed snapshots for fast disk backup and recovery. For high-availability business continuity and disaster recovery solutions, users would buy two feature-packed bundles. For remote site disaster recovery, users would buy two VM Starter packages - one for the primary location and one for the remote site. Either approach provides cost effective data protection and improves business uptime for the many systems or VMs utilizing the DataCore powered SAN.

VM Starter SAN delivers true portability - mix and match hardware; run on any type of server, virtual or physical

"By creating a VM Starter SAN package with iSCSI support, DataCore has made it easy for either an IT department or an IT integration partner to set up an iSCSI SAN that can serve physical or virtual machines (VMs). What's more, the software can run within a physical environment, such as a blade server, or in many of the top VM environments, including VMware, Xen, Microsoft and others," said Jack Fegreus, president, Open Bench Labs. "The beauty of DataCore's software is that it is completely portable. At a time when many sites are testing multiple VM environments before standardizing on a particular vendor, providing sites with the ability to mix-and-match among many flavors of virtual or physical servers makes DataCore's VM Starter SAN package a uniquely powerful tool."

All DataCore solutions are VM-ready out-of-the-box and include DataCore's unique "Carry Forward Investment Protection"

Unlike other 'virtual appliances' that are on the market, all of DataCore's storage virtualization SAN software - SANmelody, SANsymphony, Traveller and the new VM Starter SAN - can all run on VMs. Moreover, DataCore's unique "Carry Forward Investment Protection Program" applies to all of DataCore's offerings. With the Carry Forward Investment Protection Program, users only pay the difference in cost should they add options like Fibre Channel, upgrade to higher capacity, or upgrade to larger scale SANsymphony platforms at some future time.

Value to SMB customers: Enterprise data protection at a fraction of the cost

DataCore is enabling small-to-mid-size enterprises to enjoy all the benefits of enterprise-class data protection solutions at a fraction of the cost. With this new solution, DataCore fills the large gap in the market for VM data protection and meets the need that exists between low-end, Windows system replication solutions that provide single system data protection (e.g. NSI Double-Take), which cost thousands, and higher-end, enterprise class SAN-based, multi-system data protection systems (e.g. IBM, HDS), which are proprietary, complex and cost tens of thousands of dollars, or more.