https://virtualizationreview.com/Articles/2015/12/01/Editors-Choice-Awards.aspx?Page=2
Jon Toigo on DataCore SANsymphony-V, bit.ly/1SmxQsp
Why I love it:
DataCore SANsymphony-V is hands down my favorite technology product in 2015. It runs on a Windows server, where it virtualizes the mount points of all of
the Fibre Channel (FC), iSCSI and even eSATA hardware connected to the server and pools the capacity.
That lets me create virtual disks, tiers of storage, and other configurations on the fly, and also to share services like mirroring, continuous data
protection and so on across all storage, with no concern about the brand name of the hardware.
The technology saved my tuchus about a year ago when ceiling leaks spilled into storage racks on one side of my lab. The good news is that I was
replicating data to another stand of disks on the other side of the room in an active-active cluster using DataCore. The workload simply shifted to the
remaining gear so I could replace the damaged kit.
What would make it even better?
Now that DataCore also boasts the fastest storage on the planet with its Parallel I/O technology, I suspect they will get more notice than ever.
Next best in category:
There are many good software-defined storage products in the market, but none that offer actual virtualization of the infrastructure, save for the IBM SAN
Volume Controller once it’s combined with XIV software. DataCore’s strength is that it works with the kit you have, so you don’t need another appliance or
server, or new storage
Dan Kusnetzky on DataCore SANsymphony-V and DataCore Hyperconverged Virtual SAN, bit.ly/1SmxQsp
Why I love it:
SANsymphony optimizes storage utilization by creating a virtual environment on top of an organization’s currently installed infrastructure and cloud
storage. This virtual environment offers data mirroring and continuous data protection, caching, auto-tiering, and some extremely intelligent storage read
and write acceleration technology.
It also can make new workloads work well with older, established storage devices or help older workloads work well with newer storage devices. This makes
it possible for an organization to optimize its investment in storage devices, rather than having to replace expensive storage when newer systems are
acquired. Hyperconverged Virtual SAN creates a pool of storage hosted on systems throughout the datacenter that can be accessed from workloads throughout
the datacenter, as if the storage is local.
What would make it even better?
The technology is really good. Its capabilities, however, are not as well-known as they should be.
Next best in category:
There are many players in this area. Some offer their technology in the form of server appliances. DataCore makes its software available without requiring
organizations to purchase more hardware. Others focus on a single component of a storage virtualization solution, such as deploying flash devices as system
caches, storage server caches or as actual storage volume replacements. DataCore can work with these hardware additions, but it can offer similar
performance improvement using system resources already in the datacenter.
Next competitor, Sanbolic, falls short of DataCore in that it doesn’t provide Parallel I/O technology to create balanced system environments and accelerate
workloads.
