Microsoft Tech-Ed 2009: DataCore Unveils Advanced Site Recovery Solution for Virtual and Physical IT Infrastructures

ASR builds on DataCore's universal storage virtualization software to switch IT operations from a central site to one or more distributed contingency locations and back

LOS ANGELES - May 11, 2009 - DataCore Software, the leading provider of storage virtualization, is using Microsoft Tech-Ed to preview its ground-breaking Advanced Site Recovery (ASR) capabilities. This new component of DataCore's comprehensive business continuity portfolio allows central IT organizations to cost-effectively spread disaster recovery (DR) responsibilities among several smaller sites. Furthermore, the solution makes no distinction between virtual and physical servers, unifying their restoration in a common, automated process. DataCore is also using the occasion to demonstrate how expanded 64-bit features in the newest releases of SANmelody(tm) and SANsymphony(tm) benefit Microsoft users.

"The industry is conditioned to think of DR as a one-to-one proposition. They place unreasonable demands on a single recovery site, asking them to suddenly take over much larger workloads under very stressful conditions," argues James Price, vice president channel and product marketing, DataCore Software.

"But most organizations aren't structured that way. They look more like a hub and spoke, with smaller branches emanating from the central data center. For this reason, DataCore's Advanced Site Recovery distributes the disaster recovery workloads among these smaller entities, allowing each of them to accept a more manageable role in keeping the business going."

Distributed DR

DataCore's unique one-to-many approach fits well within the networking, computational and storage capacity constraints found in branch locations. And it also factors in staff and real estate limitations.

Same for Virtual and Physical Systems

As importantly, the solution is not confined to virtual servers. It operates identically with the many physical systems that make up large part of IT infrastructures today. Offering a congruent DR method for all of these environments eliminates catastrophic misalignments that plague divergent processes.

Central Site Restoration Built-in

DataCore's Advanced Site Recovery (ASR) software also addresses the rapid restoration of the central IT site from the widely dispersed branches through ongoing bi-directional replication. Other DR alternatives don't account for this critical aspect and end up prolonging the crippling effects of an outage long after the central machines could take over their original chores.

Universal Coverage for Heterogeneous Scenarios

ASR works whether the servers are purely physical, or have been virtualized with Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware or other popular hypervisors. Moreover, it supports the use of dissimilar storage devices between the data center and its branches. In contrast, lack of such heterogeneous features in competing, and much pricier, disk array-based replication products makes them unsuitable for many customers.

DataCore: Essential to Microsoft Hyper-V Configurations

DataCore yields the highest availability, fastest performance and fullest utilization from storage assets, making it an essential element of Microsoft Hyper-V configurations.

• The newest, 64-bit versions of DataCore's flagship SANmelody(tm) and SANsymphony(tm) storage virtualization solutions include advances in performance, migration, thin provisioning, and high-availability.
• Among the new features in SANmelody 3.0 and SANsymphony 7.0 that will certainly serve to benefit the demanding needs of Microsoft users are large 'mega caches' to accelerate SAN performance, non-stop high-availability, universal storage controllers that are Windows Server 2008-based, a simple and fast 'Transporter' option, and 'waste-free reclamation' of storage space.