http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/110111_DataCore_Software_Offers_SAN_Alternative_for_Windows_Server_Farms
DataCore Software Introduces a New Business Continuity Solution for Windows Microsoft servers running Exchange, SQL Server and SharePoint, eager for better data protection and performance.
The DataCore STAR high availability solution is primarily aimed at the large installed base of Microsoft servers running lines of business applications as well as Exchange, SQL Server and SharePoint, looking for better data protection and performance.
The DataCore STAR HA solution is designed for IT organizations that are seeking the benefits of a SAN, while allowing their data to remain safely stored on their servers.
DataCore also offers alternative, high-availability, high performance packages for architecting solutions using redundant, two node configurations, and scale-out grid designs.
The new business continuity solution improves on the resiliency and performance of Windows server farms enabling those systems to stay up longer, their applications to run faster, and shorten the time to recover from unexpected situations.
It is most ideal for customers that want to keep their data distributed across their server disk drives, while accessing many of the centralized and advanced services made possible by a SAN.
Instead of migrating server data to an external SAN, the DataCore STAR HA software automatically mirrors the data drives on each Windows server to a central DataCore STAR server for safekeeping.
In addition, the Window’s host-resident software speeds up applications by caching repeated disk requests locally from high-speed server memory.
If an application server in the farm goes down, another server can resume its operations by retrieving a current copy of its data drive from the central DataCore STAR server.
The DataCore STAR server also offloads replication requests across the farm. It can take centralized snapshots of the data drives and remotely replicate all critical data to a remote disaster recovery site, as well as automatically redirect requests to the central DataCore STAR server when a local server data drive is inaccessible.
Physical machines hosting standalone applications under Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as systems hosting multiple virtual machines under Microsoft Hyper-V can take advantage of the data protection and performance enhancement benefits.
The DataCore STAR HA software is compatible with Windows server applications including Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint, and line of business applications.
SAN-Averse Customers Can Take Advantage of Business & Financial Benefits
http://vmblog.com/archive/2011/11/01/datacore-software-introduces-a-new-business-continuity-solution-for-windows-server-farms.aspx
“While many IT managers are eager to exploit the benefits of centralized and shared data that SANs deliver, they also often worry that migrating to a central storage system could prove to be risky and disruptive,” said Mark Peters, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “The STAR HA software from DataCore provides a solution to this conundrum by combining the comfort and familiarity of distributed data with the attractive attributes of a central SAN in an efficient manner that is both unobtrusive and cost-effective.”
