DataCore Announces Suite of “Transplantable” iSCSI SAN and Disaster Recovery Solutions for Growing SMBs and SMEs

LONDON, UK and DALLAS, Texas – October 17, 2007 – Coinciding with Storage Expo (UK) and SNW (US), DataCore Software, the leading provider of hardware independent, storage virtualisation SAN solutions, today announced a range of Virtual Infrastructure Foundation (VIF) Acceleration Bundles designed to enable small and midsize businesses and enterprises (SMB/Es) to affordably implement iSCSI Virtual SANs and fault tolerant shared storage for virtual server systems. Ranging from £500 to £10,000 (UK list price), these SANmelodyT-based, bundled solutions make it possible for any business to get started with virtualisation backed by a DataCoreT virtual SAN, featuring advanced storage management, fast disk I/O performance acceleration, cost effective thin provisioning, SANmotion data migration, remote site disaster recover (DR) and auto-recovery high availability (HA).

“Our VIF and DR packages are value rich offerings aimed at solving the real world storage problems faced by smaller businesses. The bundles provide a solid stepping stone for SMBs considering affordable shared storage for virtual server deployments, iSCSI storage networking and/or disaster recovery solutions for the first time and for the long term,” states George Teixeira, CEO and president, DataCore Software Corporation.

DataCore’s new SMB and SME iSCSI SAN solution bundles all can be easily upgraded from one level to the next by simply paying the difference in price. Moreover, the solutions are available worldwide from DataCore value add solution providers.

The packaged offerings include:

• The Virtual Infrastructure Foundation (VIF) Acceleration SAN Bundle for Small Business (SMB): SANmelody-based virtual iSCSI SAN software supporting multiple terabyte thin provisioning storage pools, SANmotion and self-learning caching algorithms for performance acceleration, all priced from £500.A 30 day trial is available at: www.datacore.com/download.asp.
• The VIF  Business Continuity Acceleration BC Starter Bundle for Midsize Enterprises (SME): Includes the above features and adds to the shared storage SAN fault tolerant, auto failover and recovery, high availability that spans multiple sites synchronously. Pricing for software licenses range depending on options from £4,000 to around £8,000.
• The VIF  Disaster Recovery Acceleration DR Starter Bundle for Midsize Enterprises (SME): Asynchronous IP Mirroring and SAN pool replication that span multiple sites – priced from £4,000 to around £8,000.
• The VIF Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Acceleration BC/DR Bundle for Midsize Enterprises (SME): Campus-wide local auto failover and recovery SAN, plus long distance remote site storage replication over IP connections – priced from £7,000 to around £10,000.

iSCSI SANs and Virtualisation – Fast Growth Segments

“Virtualisation and iSCSI storage networks are major forces driving cost savings and modernisation in large businesses and data centers worldwide,” adds Teixeira. “The impact on small and midsize companies will be equally profound; therefore, we created these solutions and priced them to accelerate adoption – so that any SMB can afford their own virtual SAN.”

According to industry reports, iSCSI is the fastest growing segment of the storage industry. The iSCSI SAN market is predicted to grow to $5 billion by 2010.

Others indicate that virtualisation deployments among companies with fewer than 100 servers or 1,000 employees are expected to double during the next two years.

In addition it has been reported that over 85% of virtualized server deployments use a SAN and a shared storage model.

High Cost of Shared Storage Comes Between SMB/Es and Virtualization

Server consolidation offers the promise of greater efficiency, savings and administration, but the price tag associated with implementation has proven prohibitive to many SMB/Es, because of the high cost of the shared storage with automatic failover they must purchase to protect the many application “eggs” that consolidation places in one server “basket” and to keep the operations that depend on them running in the event of server failure. This barrier to SMB/E adoption is exacerbated by the disposable nature of the hardware-based storage solutions in which these growing companies are being asked to invest, which gives them little time to amortize that initial investment before they have to scrap or redeploy it to a lesser use because they have outgrown it, it has become obsolete, or it has gone the way that all machines go eventually.

DataCore Scales the Barriers to SMB/E Virtualisation Adoption.
..Enter DataCore.

DataCore solves this problem with entry-level, highly affordable, hardware independent, shared storage solutions that run on standard servers, scale with an SMB/E’s growth through software upgrades, and can be transplanted from one server to the next. As such, it is a storage solution that is persistent and renewable, serving and managing storage for many years and surviving generations of hardware. While other vendors force the customer to buy all at once, charging high premiums for follow on sales and upgrades, DataCore allows SMB/Es to get started with just what their current needs dictate and to easily upgrade as and when the need requires, without paying a premium for that luxury. Upgrades, depending on package, include Snapshot, Asynchronous IP Mirroring (AIM), Synchronous Mirroring, and Continuous Data Protection (CDP). In addition, unlike most of today’s iSCSI storage solutions for SMB/E, DataCore solutions are network agnostic. All DataCore iSCSI solutions can be easily upgraded to fully support Fibre Channel connections as well, giving SMB/Es the ultimate flexibility in choice of network – without requiring the customer to pay for the choice in advance.

Portable & Upgradeable Storage Solutions Survive Hardware Obsolescence For nearly 10 years, enterprise customers and SMB/Es alike have relied upon DataCore storage virtualisation solutions to serve, manage and protect their data and to grow their storage infrastructures efficiently and economically with a solution that continues to work for them even as the hardware within that infrastructure comes and goes. DataCore solutions are a lasting, modern alternative to traditional, hardware-based storage arrays, which (to anyone with a screwdriver) are quickly revealed to be simply standard servers, with commodity disk drives, running smart storage applications that do all the work and represent all the value. Tied to the box, the solution within goes wherever the box goes – including to the landfill. DataCore, on the other hand, builds software-based, storage solutions that run on any standard server, turning it into a storage server. It separates the “brains” from the “body,” creating a solution that is truly transportable from one server generation to the next.

“No one would ever dream of throwing away Exchange because the server on which it was running became obsolete,” says Teixeira. “Yet, this is what the storage industry has been forcing SMB’s to do with their storage for years, junking their entire investment each time they need to replace, grow or upgrade their storage solutions. DataCore give its customers the power to reject this abusive paradigm by offering SMB/Es both the shared storage required to implement virtual infrastructures and the comfort of knowing that their investments in DataCore virtual SAN solutions will continue to work for them for many years to come – even as they grow and their needs change.”

DataCore,the DataCore logo and SANmelody are trademarks or registered trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. Other DataCore product or service names or logos referenced herein are trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. All other products, services and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.