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SANmelody Highlights

SANmelody 3.0: DataCore Aims Major Software Enhancements at Shared Storage Requirements for Virtual Server Infrastructures

DataCore New Release Presentation

Below you'll find a brief description of SANmelody™ Software Features and Options.

For additional information, review the Solutions Cards (Microsoft, VMware, Citrix, Parallels, etc.)
Also, please download the White Paper entitled, "SANmelody Software Converts PCs into Powerful Network Disk Servers"

Base Capabilities
The base software package enables you to transform a general purpose Intel/AMD server into a Powered by DataCore™ disk server with the following essential features:

iSCSI disk emulation. Serves well-behaved virtual disks to popular operating systems using standard iSCSI protocol over Ethernet.
Support for numerous types of disk drives. Supports any disk drives qualified for Windows (i.e. SCSI, EIDE, Fibre Channel, SATA, etc.) and transparently bridges between the drive interface and the iSCSI or optional Fibre Channel host connection. Please refer to this FAQ on DataCore's SANmelody Technical Support Site for supported disk drives.
Performance Acceleration - I/O read and write caching. Uses the server's local memory (RAM) as a cache to improve application response time.
Virtual Disk Pooling. Divides or aggregates physical disks to meet various capacity requirements.
Intuitive administrative GUI. Uses Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Snap-ins for simple point and click configuration and management.
Performance displays. Leverages Windows' built-in Perfmon to trace SANmelody-specific performance counters.
Event logging. Assists in troubleshooting via Windows' built-in Event Viewer and event log.
SANmotion. Data migration capability enabling users to move, access and serve and pass through "Live Data" pre-formatted Windows disks across the SAN. More info and animated slide show.

Advanced Modules, Features and Options (also see descriptions of Feature-Packed Bundles)

Fibre Channel Disk Emulation Software: Serves well-behaved virtual disks to popular operating systems using Fibre Channel connections.
Snapshot Software: Point-in-time snapshots are generated using copy-on-write technology for selected virtual volumes. Snapshots may also be triggered from the Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) in Windows Server 2008/2003 hosts attached to the disk server.
Thin Provisioning Software: Just-in-time thin provisioning takes the guesswork out of LUN allocation. The software presents large virtual volumes to applications but only allocates disk blocks dynamically as the application consumes it. For more information, see Thin Provisioning.
Asynchronous IP Replication Option: The Asynchronous IP Mirroring (AIM) software replicates selected volumes between a pair of disk servers using native IP connections over long distances. Each disk server in the AIM connection must be separately licensed with the SANmelody AIM option. Click here for notes. Get more technical detail on how Asynchronous IP Mirroring (AIM) works.
High Availability, Synchronous Mirroring Software: Synchronously mirrors writes between a pair of disk servers using either iSCSI/LAN or Fibre Channel connections. Both disk servers may actively process I/Os with one handling primary paths for some of the volumes and secondary paths for others. In the event of a failure, the companion server takes over with the mirrored volumes. Hosts must be adequately configured with qualified multi-pathing drivers to take advantage of this automatic failover feature. Each disk server must be separately licensed with the HA option.
High Availability Multi Path software: DataCore provides several Multi path software solutions for application servers that ensure continued I/O access in the case of a physical path failure. The DataCore MPIO Driver is based on the industry standard Windows MPIO specification. This driver provides Fibre Channel and iSCSI path failover for Windows 2008 and Windows 2003 Server. Note for MPIO on Windows 2008: FC HBA and hardware iSCSI HBA support, for software iSCSI a hotfix from Microsoft is required to use its iSCSI driver. Go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961570/en-us and download the appropriate hotfix. In addition, there are several other 3rd-party Multipath driver solutions that DataCore has qualified for use on various operating system environments. See the Application Server High Availability Products for additional details and specific O.S. Revisions supported.
DataCore VSS Software Option (Snapshot for SQL Server, Exchange and VSS Aware Applications) Simplified disk-to-disk backup for rapid recovery. DataCore supports Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) which provides the ability to create a point-in-time copy for all VSS aware applications including SQL Server, Exchange and Windows file systems to ensure the applications are in a consistent state to enable rapid recovery from a point-in-time and to simplify backup processes. The volumes are delivered to the application servers from SANmelody. DataCore snapshot commands can be issued either locally or remotely (via synchronous disk-to-disk mirrors or AIM Asynchronous IP Mirroring) to enable back-up copies or an offline application to utilize the data volumes. See VSS animation slides for functional operation.
SANmaestro: Monitors, analyzes and reports critical SAN storage and Windows events as well as performance metrics and utilization information over variable time periods for trend analysis. For more information, see: SANmaestro Overview.
Transporter: Fastest, most general way to migrate & import Windows images, including the boot drive, between dissimilar physical or virtual platforms without waiting for lengthy disk-to-disk copies or error prone conversions. For more information, see: Transporter Option

Additional Software

Asynchronous IP Mirrors (AIM) Client: AIM client runs and operates as a standalone application on a Windows application server independent of SANmelody. AIM Client operates within the confines of a single Windows application server and can act as a AIM source for locally attached volumes only. AIM client provides the capability to asynchronously mirror select volume write operations (based on configuration) to a remote site running SANmelody with the AIM option (the AIM destination). Click here for notes.
Hypervisor Integration Toolkit for VMware Virtual Center: The DataCore VMware Integration Toolkit aids in the integration of DataCore storage services and management applications and the virtualization world of VMware Infrastructure (VI) Client. Tools in the toolkit automate the discovery of ESX hosts and virtual machines, adding them as application servers in the SAN, and the configuration of adapters and channels. For more information, see: VMware Integration Toolkit
UpTempo: A powerful, performance accelerator software for Windows-based systems. It dramatically speeds up applications by making the computer system read and write data to its disk drives more efficiently. For more information, see: UpTempo Overview