Shared SAN

Provide a controlled and secure mechanism for two or more computers to share storage

Several scenarios may be driving you to consider a shared Storage Area Network (SAN)

• Clustered servers
• Desktop virtualization
• Disk allocation problems
• Server consolidation
• Server virtualization
• Underutilized capacity

These days, servers come packed full of disks. It’s not uncommon to find some servers with way more capacity than they need while others are starved for space. DataCore helps you aggregate all available disks into a virtual storage pool from which you provision capacity to different computers as needed. That’s done by placing the disks behind servers running the DataCore software. These nodes control the SAN and the storage behind it. The software also thin provisions disk space to minimize the actual capacity taken up without waste.

Virtual SANs under the control of the DataCore software also allow different physical and virtual servers to share disks as required for live migration, load balancing and failover of workloads between clustered systems.

In large enterprises, the DataCore nodes may control several separate SANs, intentionally isolated from each other for security, ease of administration and ownership reasons. At the other extreme, DataCore software will create a virtual SAN between two physical servers connected over a simple Ethernet LAN. Then combine the capacity from those servers into a fully mirrored storage pool.

The disks used to scale out the SAN don’t have to be alike. They can even be direct-attached to the DataCore nodes using bus protocols like SAS and SATA. The DataCore software automatically bridges the iSCSI or Fibre Channel connections from the host computers (storage consumers) to the back-end disks by translating the different disk interface protocols as needed.

If you are looking to build out a Shared SAN that is non-stop, lightning fast and waste-free, then DataCore is the solution for you.