It’s another busy morning for a storage administrator. One storage pool is nearing capacity, a virtual disk is showing higher-than-usual latency, and a replication warning has appeared. Three different concerns, each demanding attention. Is the latency a real problem? How much capacity is left? Is critical data still protected?
The answers are somewhere in the system, but finding them is another matter. As storage environments become more complex, administrators must sift through growing volumes of operational data, correlate information, examine historical trends, and consult technical documentation. What should be a straightforward assessment can quickly turn into a time-consuming investigation.
What if getting answers about your storage environment were as simple as asking a question? That’s exactly what we’re introducing with DataCore AI.
Meet DataCore AI for SANsymphony: Your Personal Storage Assistant
DataCore AI is our initiative to make storage operations more intelligent and efficient, helping IT teams work more effectively and make better-informed decisions. We are bringing this vision to life first with SANsymphony.
With DataCore AI, administrators can interact with their SANsymphony environment through natural-language conversations. They can ask questions about storage health, performance, capacity, configurations, and data protection, and receive contextual answers, insights, and recommended next steps.
The AI assistant helps across three fundamental areas of storage operations:
- Observe: Know what’s happening. Monitor storage health, performance, capacity, alerts, and data protection. Identify unusual conditions and potential risks.
- Manage: Understand and optimize your environment. Explore storage configurations, resource utilization, and connectivity. Get relevant information and guidance to make informed decisions.
- Troubleshoot: Find causes and resolve issues faster. Investigate alerts, errors, and performance problems. Identify potential causes and get recommended corrective actions.
From Storage Information to Contextual Answers
To generate responses, DataCore AI draws on three key information sources:
- Live SANsymphony information: System health, configuration, inventory, performance, capacity, connectivity, alerts, logs, and data protection status.
- Historical telemetry: Operational history, performance baselines, latency trends, I/O activity, and anomaly assessments that provide context for current conditions.
- DataCore technical knowledge: Product documentation, knowledge base articles, known issues, fixes, and operational procedures.
By analyzing and correlating these sources, the AI assistant provides insights and guidance grounded in the customer’s actual storage environment. Where available, answers include references to supporting information, allowing administrators to review the findings and investigate further.
What Can You Ask DataCore AI?
Here are some everyday questions administrators can ask DataCore AI.
| Area | Example questions |
|---|---|
| Storage health | Is anything wrong with my storage environment? Which virtual disks are unhealthy? |
| Performance | Is this latency normal? Is it higher than the historical baseline? |
| Capacity | Which storage pools are running low on capacity? How much physical space is this virtual disk consuming? |
| Connectivity | Which hosts can access this virtual disk? Are redundant storage paths available? |
| Data protection | Is replication healthy? Which virtual disks have CDP enabled? Are any mirrors out of sync? |
| Troubleshooting | Why is this storage pool degraded? What should I check to investigate this issue? |
| Product knowledge | How do I configure replication? What does DataCore recommend for this operation? |
These examples illustrate the range of questions DataCore AI can address. The depth of its responses depends on the information available from the connected environment and DataCore knowledge services.
And because SANsymphony manages heterogeneous block storage environments, DataCore AI can extend these capabilities across supported infrastructure from multiple hardware vendors. Customers can benefit from AI-assisted operations while preserving the hardware flexibility that has long been central to SANsymphony.
How DataCore AI Works
DataCore AI combines a locally deployed AI Agent with Anthropic Claude to provide contextual assistance for SANsymphony environments.
The AI Agent runs on a Linux system, typically a virtual machine within the customer’s infrastructure, and can connect to multiple SANsymphony instances over the network. Administrators access the assistant through a web browser or the SANsymphony Management Console.
When an administrator asks a question, the AI Agent retrieves relevant information from SANsymphony and DataCore’s supporting services. The question, selected operational data, and conversation context are sent to Claude using the customer’s own API access to generate a contextual response, which administrators can explore through follow-up questions.
Security, Privacy, and Administrator Control in Mind
Security and data privacy are essential when introducing AI into business-critical storage environments. DataCore AI is designed to protect sensitive information while keeping administrators in control.
Administrator control: DataCore AI operates in read-only mode. It provides insights and recommended corrective actions but cannot modify storage configurations or execute changes. Administrators retain full control over their environment.
Data privacy: Questions, relevant conversation context, and operational information are sent to Anthropic Claude using the customer’s own API access. Sensitive fields in retrieved data, including license keys, email addresses, and phone numbers, are redacted before transmission. User-entered questions are not automatically redacted.
Conversation privacy: DataCore does not store customer conversations by default. Conversations are shared with DataCore only when customers explicitly choose to submit them, such as when providing feedback.
LLM data protection: Under Anthropic’s standard commercial API terms, customer inputs and outputs are not used for model training by default, subject to applicable exceptions. Anthropic’s own data retention and processing policies apply.
Available Now for SANsymphony Customers
DataCore AI is available for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP21 and later, across all four editions: EN, ST, BZ, and BR. It is offered at no additional DataCore license cost. Customers provide their own Anthropic Claude API key, with access to a supported model, and cover the associated API usage charges.
Getting started involves downloading the DataCore AI Agent and obtaining an activation key through the DataCore Customer Support Portal. Customers then deploy the AI Agent on a Linux system, configure connectivity and credentials for their SANsymphony environment, and provide their Anthropic API key. The AI Agent requires connectivity to the relevant DataCore services, including periodic license validation through DataCore’s hosted License Manager.
Once configured, administrators can begin asking questions about storage health, performance, capacity, connectivity, protection, and other aspects of their SANsymphony environment.
For more information, visit DataCore AI for SANsymphony. Existing customers can download the software and activation resources through the DataCore Customer Support Portal.
What’s Next for DataCore AI
DataCore AI for SANsymphony is just the beginning. We are expanding AI capabilities across our portfolio, with Swarm and StarWind next, as part of our broader vision for intelligent storage operations.
Our roadmap moves beyond insights and recommended actions toward agentic workflows and, eventually, increasingly autonomous operations. For now, our focus is on making everyday storage management simpler, faster, and more efficient, while keeping administrators in control. As DataCore continues its own AI transformation, we’re bringing those same benefits into the products our customers rely on.
