Organ and tissue procurement organization builds a software-defined virtual data center powered by DataCore SANsymphony-V
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. & ST. LOUIS – October 8, 2013 – DataCore Software, the leader in software defined storage architecture and premier provider of storage virtualization software, announced today that Mid-America Transplant Services (MTS) has achieved a new level of high-availability for continuous operations and realized significant business benefits from implementing DataCore’s SANsymphony™-V storage virtualization platform. SANsymphony-V allows MTS to create a powerful software architecture enabling the organization to address and overcome the storage and business continuity challenges of server virtualization with a robust, software-defined solution.
“You need high availability not only to keep end user applications up and running, but also to make sure the VMware vSphere infrastructure is continuously in operation,” said Phil Hawkes, director of information systems at Mid-America Transplant Services. “DataCore’s storage virtualization platform made the deployment of server hypervisors a practical reality for our organization.”
Having already chosen VMware for server virtualization, MTS was well aware of the storage challenge they would be facing, but knew that VMware includes a number of features designed to assure that the virtual servers would not go down. However, storage remains the biggest challenge to overcome when organizations embrace server virtualization. “The storage challenge is building an architecture that is flexible and allows you to incorporate the right equipment on the backend to make sure your users have the availability they need,” notes Hawkes.
MTS’s IT team concluded that a pure software-based approach to storage virtualization best fit their business needs and is highly complementary to server virtualization. Mirazon, a DataCore Software Premier Partner, implemented the solution for MTS. “The combination of DataCore and VMware made it easy to implement a true software-defined data center in which MTS was able to gain the productivity benefits of having all their computing and storage resources fully virtualized and highly available to support continuous operations,” said Craig Stein, solutions architect at Mirazon.
A software-defined storage solution enables organizations to more effectively reap the benefits that server virtualization affords. MTS found the value that DataCore‘s SANsymphony-V storage virtualization software brought to its IT infrastructure was, more than anything else, high availability and hardware independence. “You put all of your eggs in one basket once you virtualize everything,” states Hawkes. “Our storage challenge was to make sure we had something extremely robust on the backend that we knew we could rely on.”
Beyond the uptime assured by the high availability, SANsymphony-V’s other notable features, such as automated storage tiering, adaptive high-speed caching and rapid provisioning, allow organizations of all sizes to take advantage of enterprise-class storage virtualization to speed up critical business applications and meet the dynamic demands of virtual data centers powered by hardware agnostic and flexible, software-defined storage.
With regards to the overall deployment at Mid-America Transplant Services, Barry Martin, chief technology officer at Mirazon, concludes, “MTS has embraced ‘software-defined storage’ as an essential element of its software-defined data center. Virtual storage infrastructures make sense as the foundation for scalable, elastic and efficient computing. For companies embarking upon server virtualization initiatives, MTS is a real-world testament that it is crucial to have a robust, software-defined SAN solution on the backend.”
Click here to access a DataCore case study on Mid-America Transplant Services titled “Achieving High-Availability and Continuous Operations through a Software-Defined Virtual Data Center Powered by DataCore” – https://www.datacore.com/mid-atlantic-transplant-services
About Mid-America Transplant Services
For 35 years, Mid-America Transplant Services (MTS) has served as the regional organ and tissue procurement organization for eastern Missouri, southern Illinois, and northeast Arkansas, serving 4.3 million people in 84 counties. From its founding goal to assist in the coordination of kidney donations, MTS has grown to become a multi-faceted organization dedicated to saving lives and enhancing the quality of all donated organs and tissues currently available for transplant. Located in Saint Louis, Missouri, MTS is one of 58 federally designated organizations of its kind in the United States. Website: http://www.mts-stl.org.
Mirazon
Mirazon is a world-class provider of technology solutions and consulting services. The Mirazon team is a strong advocate for virtualization and is renowned for their high level of technical expertise and customer service. The company is a Microsoft Gold Certified Infrastructure Partner and has strategic partnerships with VMware, DataCore, Cisco, and others. Customers rely on Mirazon as a trusted IT advisor and solutions provider that delivers complete business solutions. Visit http://www.mirazon.com.
About SANsymphony™-V R9
DataCore’s SANsymphony-V is an agnostic storage virtualization platform that enables companies to avoid hardware lock-in and purchase only the equipment that best suits their business goals. DataCore’s software empowers customers’ existing storage and significantly improves business critical application performance. Advanced features, such as automated storage tiering, allow IT administrators to get the maximum return on investment from expensive hardware purchases, such as flash and SSD. This assures that only applications and databases that require powerful computing are ever stored on them, while less frequently used, non-critical data is sent to less costly and lower performing equipment or even cloud-based options.
About DataCore Software
DataCore Software develops storage virtualization software for high availability, fast performance and maximum utilization from storage in virtual and physical IT environments. DataCore SANsymphony™-V storage hypervisor is a comprehensive, hardware-independent solution that fundamentally changes the economics of provisioning, replicating and protecting storage in large enterprises and small to midsize businesses. For additional information, visit the DataCore website at https://www.datacore.com or call (877) 780-5111.
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