DataCore SANsymphony-V

Datacore SANsymphony-V is the software solution for creation of own DWH based on the existing infrastructure of the company. The storage system created using SANsymphony-V can work under the protocols iSCSI, FCP, FCoE. It provides the maximum convenience and flexibility of use of network interfaces. And also allows to receive capacity of interfaces at the level of branded DWH.

The product SANsymphony-V has complete functionality which can be necessary during creation of a storage system and its use. At the same time a ratio price/quality in a product also at the high level.

Basic functions of SANsymphony-V:

• ThinProvisioning is technology of dynamic selection of capacity at the request of your hosts. This function allows to save excesses of an empty seat which at present one of your hosts reserved under itself, "shifting" data for more economic placement.
• Continuous Data Protection & Recovery is process which allows you to create a network mirror of DWH where on secondary - a node information on all - changes of primary node within the last 48 hours will be saved that it will allow you to be rolled away to any recovery point of volumes for the last 2 days.
• Sync Mirroring (High-Availability) is mirroring of a network cluster of DWH on several nodes.
• Async Remote Replication is the asynchronous remote replication of data allowing to organize the geographically distributed network cluster protected from floods, earthquakes, falling of meteorites and all other.

At the heart of everything virtual disk

The accelerated data access and use of all cores

Development History

2017: Release of release of PSP7 for SANsymphony and Hyperconverged Virtual SAN

DataCore Software provided on October 18, 2017 the functions and improvements expanding possibilities of the family of its products for software-defined infrastructure consisting of SANsymphony and DataCore Hyperconverged Virtual SAN. The next release of the software of PSP7 is developed according to the long-term strategy of DataCore on providing flexibility to the organizations along with operational, seamless data access which are necessary for transformation of business during an era of digital technologies.

The flagship product of SANsymphony integrates diverse resources of storage in a virtual pool that allows to implement for them uniform management and services. DataCore Hyperconverged Virtual SAN, in turn, provides similar services using an internal subsystem of storage or storage system of DAS in a cluster.

In release of PSP7 functions of the multilateral and geodistributed mirroring for optimization of continuous availability and also fault tolerance at horizontal scaling with a possibility of selfrecovery for ensuring continuous business processes and data access are added. Even at failure of one system the necessary redundancy for ensuring high availability remains, and failure of two systems will not lead to interruption of operation of applications. Finally, it leads to significant savings due to decrease in a downtime of applications and the accelerated recovery of their normal work after failures, emphasized in DataCore.

The company also expanded integration of the products with corporate REST API, having added to them the program master for simplification and automation of implementation of hyper convergent infrastructure under control of VMware vSphere and also having implemented support of joint work at orchestration of container solutions (including Kubernetes) in a server cluster. These functions are intended to simplify automation and interaction with network and cloud services, provide to the administrator of virtualization the single console of management of all resources of storage and implement support of DevOps technologies.

At last, in PSP7 support of use of Microsoft Azure, the Windows 2016 servers and hybrid clouds is expanded. The packet of DataCore Cloud Replication which can be purchased on Azure Marketplace simplifies to the enterprises application of a scalable and dynamic cloud of Azure providing fast deployment of the protected platform for remote replication, providing at the same time the unified management of storage of data which are in private clouds, infrastructure of corporate data center and public clouds.

According to developers, the provided release develops the strategy of DataCore on use of multinuclear parallel processing of input-output for scaling of performance and productivity, laying the foundation for further optimization of technology of horizontal - scaling of data anywhere. For example, function of multilateral mirroring multi-way allows to scale horizontally nodes, implements fault tolerance that in combination with the high level of automation levels need of control of exact location of data.

The release of PSP7 will be available within the next two months.

2016: Achievement in the SPC-1 IOPS test

On February 16, 2016 the DataCore Software company announced achievement of record levels in category "price performance" in the reference SPC-1 Storage Performance Council test.

Comparative chart of the SPC-1 IOPS (2016) tests

The DataCore technology passed test on powerful, but compact multinuclear server 2U Lenovo System x3650 M5 with the Intel Xeon processors E5-2600 of the 3rd series, a combination from solid state drives (SSD) and traditional hard drives. On this platform of DataCore company it was succeeded to receive the minimum response time in the industry, even in comparison with many All-Flash arrays and classical storage systems of the brand leaders which published the results in SPC-1 test.

The received results allow DataCore company to declare opportunities of the software for parallel input-output of data and the hyper convergent systems loudly. And we consider that it only the beginning. We are going to test the technology in multinodal configurations of high availability and to show the speed of input-output of data in servers and beyond their limits — it is very important for the future of all storage systems. So far we showed only a part of potential of the parallel architecture of input-output. Ziya Aral, chairman of the board of DataCore Software company

For evaluating the DataCore company  used a serial hyper convergent system for corporate transaction processing in real time and applications of databases, sensitive to delays: the rating of performance of SPC-1 IOPS was  459,290.87, and the total cost hardware and the software, including three years of technical support — $ 38,400.29 that gives the best indicator SPC-1 Price-Performance equal to $0.08 for one SPC-1 IOPS. This result for 300% beats the previous record of $0.24 for one SPC-1 IOPS of the solution Infortrend EonStor DS 3024B2 and is less than 25% of the cost of popular flagman arrays of storage, such as EMC VNX 80003, NetApp EF5604 All Flash Array, Dell Storage SC40205 and HP 3PAR of StoreServ 74006.

Representation of differences between consecutive and parallel input-output. Serial vs. Parallel I/O Processing (2016)

DataCore and IBM the only companies holding testing of the hyper convergent systems in which SPC-1 applications and workloads of data storage generated by them work at the same platform. It means that  the price of $38,400.29 offered by DataCore company, includes not only components of a storage system, but also all resources a host server and the software of hypervisors which are necessary for management of the workloads generated during testing for corporate bases of data/transaction processing system in real time (OLTP).

"Price performance" was succeeded to reach such rating by means of adaptive technologies of parallel input / exit of data of DataCore company, SANsymphony-V implemented at the level of architecture of the platform of services of software-defined data storage.

The solution DataCore executes data transmission on numerous separate flows of input-output at the same time by means of a set of cores of central processors that allows to reduce considerably a delay of service and processing of input-output due to complete use of opportunities of highly profitable multinuclear servers with a high density of calculations, such as Lenovo System X. In the competing solutions the input/output of data is serialized that limits the general capacity and increasing response time.

It is initial the Lenovo company asked to pass test of SPC-1 for corporate workloads us. They wanted to be convinced that we will be able to use all potential of their multinuclear servers about what in circles of specialists in the giperkovergentny systems unconfirmed rumors went long ago. Soon they understood that the technology of parallel input-output offers unknown opportunities. George Teykseyra, chief executive of DataCore

Lenovo is glad to cooperation with DataCore company in the field of innovations in the software market. We want to offer clients the price relation, best in the industry, and characteristics. The best results in SPC-1 test achieved on servers X of Lenovo company showed performance level, innovations and reliability which Lenovo aims to provide to the clients for the satisfaction of the growing requirements to storage systems. Chris Frey, vice president and CEO of Lenovo North America

As a part of the configuration which passed test and cost estimation, the software of parallel input-output of SANsymphony-V of the company DataCore set on the multinuclear Lenovo System x3650 M5 server with the Intel Xeon processors E5-2600 of the 3rd version, 16 drives SSD and 8 hard drives working running OS Microsoft Windows Server.

The software DataCore supports Microsoft Hyper-V VMware ESXi, Linux KVM and other solutions on the basis of hypervisors. It can also work on servers Windows directly when virtualization of the server is inappropriate.

2014: Datacore SANsymphony-V 10.0

In May, 2014 DataCore announced an exit of the 10th generation of SANsymphony-V. This version expands possibilities of virtual SAN and allows to receive the high performance, high availability and optimal use of Flash and DAS connected to application servers and servers in a cluster.

Virtual SAN from DataCore is the software solution which automates and simplifies management and service and at the same time provides functionality of the corporate level, automates recovery and considerably accelerates work. Software easily is established on existing or new h86 servers, at the same time resources of servers are added to the total amount of storage. Thus, installation of DataCore Virtual SAN does not require big investments and the difficult equipment of SAN.

Unlike DataCore, traditional solutions of the corporate level for data storage:

• Cannot long sustain the big, increasing loading on physical SAN
• Work with specific server hypervisors that considerably limits their scenarios of use.

New generation of virtual SAN: high performance and data availability, scaling option. The software of SANsymphony-V10 virtual SAN will provide more than 50 million IOPS and 32 Petabytes in a cluster from 32 servers that does this system of the most productive and scalable in the market.

Data availability is a standard for DataCore; the software product includes automatic fault tolerance and recovery, provides N+1 network (to 32 notes) in the subway – a cluster. DataCore virtual SAN easy and just provides a nepreryvnuyudostupnost of data through replication on the remote website. An important point – all these operations will be automatically performed.

DataCore SANsymphony-V10 solves problems of diverse combinations of virtual and physical SAN – virtual SAN can extend in external, consolidating all available resources of storage at once or later if it is required. In difference from competitors – DataCore can work on application servers as virtual SAN, to manage physical SAN or to make the mixed structure from virtual and physical SAN

Solution for corporate DPCs

SANsymphony-V10 well is suitable for big installations, but many users have modest requirements for the first virtual SAN. Usually they look for solutions which work "in memory" for increase in speed of work of business applications. At the same time the budget on the equipment is, as a rule, limited.

DataCore virtual SANs is the solution for cluster installations, VDI solutions, the remote websites for disaster recovery. The solution well approaches the databases and business applications (requiring high performance), working on standard servers and for the companies which implement powerful software products from modular Google-like infrastructure which use diverse and/or inexpensive storage systems, servers and inexpensive network solutions for creation of architecture of a corporate class.

Virtual SAN and Flash: the functional software product which to nuzhnoispolzovat at each implementation of Flash SANsymphony-V10 provides the most functional set of technologies and services for management, integration and optimization of Flash technology as parts of your virtual SAN or in data storage infrastructure. For example, SANsymphony-V10 itself adapts for work with Flash and thus minimizes their wear, allows to do mirroring both on flash, and on not flash of the device for optimization of cost. DataCore uses adaptive technology of a cache "in memory" for acceleration of operation of applications, optimization of record in addition to productive Flash to cards. The functionality of auto-tiering optimizes work with platforms of different producers, saving the made and future investments into Flash and storage systems (15 levels/tier). Other technologies, such as mirroring in the subway - a cluster, snapshots and automatic recovery considerably increase performance, flexibility and optimize cost.

Universal platform of management

SANsymphony-V10 offers the universal platform of management, integrating different, incompatible devices.

Additional features

Pay attention to new functionality of virtual SAN, a new method of licensing and cost. Besides performance and possibilities of scalability is improved:

• Quantity of notes in group increased from 16 to 32 notes. Possibility of creation of the subway of a cluster of N+1 for data protection
• Support of high-speed interfaces 40/56 of GigE iSCSI; 16Gbps Fibre Channel; iSCSI Target NIC teaming
• The tool for visualization and performance review and tiering
• New opportunities in auto-tiering for optimization of use of expensive resources of storage
• Rebalancing of disks will dynamically redistribute loading between available devices in tier
• Performance improvement through load balancing on CPU and optimization of work with Flash
• Optimization of work with arrays of disks and selfrecovery; Data are automatically recovered on available resources in an array of disks; the choice of area of data and their prioritization for recovery
• A new plug-and-play operation algorithm about a cache and optimization for Flash and SSD
• The ordinary assistant for setup of different scenarios of use - Virtual SAN; High-Availability SANs; NAS File Shares; etc

Cost and availability

The standard license for SANsymphony-V10 costs from of $10K up to of $25K. The cost of new Virtual SAN begins from of $4K for the server. Is included in the price of virtual SAN auto-tiering, adaptive read/write caching from DRAM, storage pooling, metro-wide synchronous mirroring, thin provisioning and snapshots. The software supports all popular operating systems working in virtual environments of VMware of ESX and Microsoft Hyper-V. Plug-ins for VMware vSphere and Microsoft System Center simplify management. SANsymphony-V10 and its virtual SAN can be established in virtual environment or on Windows Server 2012, using standard physical x86-64 servers.

2013: Datacore SANsymphony-V 9.0

New opportunities of the solution are directed to satisfaction of requirements of the following user groups: the organizations planning deployment of a private cloud; large data processing centers for which the flexible services similar to cloud are necessary; suppliers of cloud computing (CSP) for the aid to whom DataCore Software developed the special program for creation of cloud infrastructure based on SANsymphony 9.0.

"The last innovations of DataCore in the field of hypervisors for storage systems and also the models of a hosting and pricing applied to them extremely precisely consider customers needs on creation of cloud storages. At the same time can act as the user as the beginner applying trial version and the owner of the serious large-scale project, – Mark Peters, the senior analyst of Enterprise Strategy Group company considers. – Thanks to these innovations it was succeeded to resolve the issues connected with data storage when using the IaaS model therefore if necessary it is easy to implement, reorganize or broaden cloud storages. It is really convenient and it makes sense even for the data processing centers which did not perform transition to "cloud" yet".

"The modules IaaS supported by SANsymphony-V 9.0 masterly manage dynamic coordination between the directory positions displayed on the subscriber's screen and the data storage devices meeting their requirements, – George Teikseira, the CEO and the president of DataCore Software explained. – The principle of the automated work of cloud storages is based on it".

Suppliers clouds can use the IaaS functions in SANsymphony-V 9.0 for ensuring individual needs for storage for each client. The hypervisor of DataCore gives a complex set of opportunities with central office for work on all infrastructure. Storage devices can be transformed and integrated in separate levels, having automatically optimized them as much as possible to increase efficiency of use of more expensive resources and to improve system performance. The software dynamically creates and deletes virtual disks and releases space after completion of process. For full control and visualization of infrastructure of SANsymphony-V 9.0 offers the modules IaaS supporting integration with popular hypervisors for servers of VMware and Microsoft and also with products of general management by systems, for example, Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager and VMware vCenter.

The scalability – important property of cloud infrastructures according to which segmentation of pools of carriers is made increases or decreases the size of storage according to the changing needs of users. The feature of SANsymphony-V 9.0 consists that scaling of infrastructure of storage is made in the greater or lower side automatically, adapting to new requirements – quickly and without breaks in work.

The hypervisor of storage systems allows to integrate the distributed resources of storages located in one place or deleted and regardless of the producer or model. The lack of dependence on the equipment gives the chance to use all advantages of special storage devices (solid-state disks, external systems of storage, internal hard drives of the server and public cloud storages), but without additional increase in level of complexity and inconsistency of management. Function of automatic hierarchical distribution in combination with automatic control of loading guarantees optimal use of disk space and maximum capacity of input-output operations. These functions satisfy dynamically changing needs of users, applications and business at reasonable price.

The new scheme of licensing of SANsymphony-V 9.0 completely corresponds to ample opportunities of scalability of a product. The solution is available in five different models of virtualization: from very large deployments to small pilot programs and industry applications. Clients can execute updating from different versions without the need for installation of new software or idle times that promotes the maximum return of investments. The special program of licensing is offered to suppliers of a cloud and services of placement. SANsymphony-V 9.0 already went on sale through the international network of the authorized partners of DataCore.