Storage virtualisation software radically reduces storage hardware burden

Reading, UK ? 7th August, 2007 ?DataCore Software today announced that it has made thin provisioning easily available by download to anyone who wants to try it. Thin provisioning is revolutionizing storage management and energy savings in data centres around the world, but most potential users have limited access to the technology because vendors restrict their thin provisioning solutions to work only with their own higher priced storage arrays and disks. DataCore makes thin provisioning an open network-based service that works with nearly all storage brands and devices. DataCore?s affordable hardware independent, thin provisioning software solutions enable any business to fully participate in the cost saving benefits of virtualising and consolidating its storage. By offering storage consolidation and thin provisioning as a complete solution, DataCore gives users the ability to irradicate inefficient, storage proliferation and its damaging consequences to their business and produce an immediate reduction in their carbon footprint.

Pioneered by DataCore in 2001, network-based thin provisioning non-disruptively and automatically allocates physical storage capacity to application servers only when it is actually used.  This dramatically improves storage utilisation and can reduce the total number of disk drives required, and the energy needed to operate and cool them, by over half. The software installs on any standard Windows platform in minutes.

The 30-day free trial available is available for download at www.datacore.com/download.asp

Thin Provisioning Plays a Revolutionary Role in Storage Management
Recent analyst reports, trade publications, blogs and message boards all confirm the profound impact of thin-provisioning. Thin provisioning is radically redefining storage utilization, response times and flexibility requirements for IT infrastructures.

According to Mike Karp, senior analyst, Enterprise Management Associates, ?Thin provisioning can be great solution for budget-strapped IT managers. It saves money, time, worry, and is ‘green’, so it makes companies good environmental citizens. The DataCore approach, like that of VMWare, and Citrix, is not wrapped in expensive hardware. A customer?s investment is protected because DataCore thin provisioning will keep working even if their hardware infrastructure changes.?

DataCore is Versatile, Network Software: No Forklift Required
?We are excited to be the first vendor to bring out free downloadable thin provisioning software. Our rationale is simple  – to let as many users experience the benefits first hand,? said George Teixeira, CEO and president of DataCore. ?We can do this only because our thin provisioning software is not locked to the hardware. It runs on any standard, Windows server. It doesn?t require the purchase of big arrays or expensive hardware. This makes trying thin provisioning easy on the users. Most have an extra Windows server available and installation takes just a few minutes.  Being hardware independent software also makes it easy for us to encourage people to explore the energy and money saving, thin-provisioning benefits by making a 30 day trial available for download from our website. We thought, ?since we are the only ones who can let everyone try this energy saving technology, it?s something we ought to do.??

DataCore is also confident that those who do trial DataCore?s thin provisioning will join the ranks of DataCore?s thousands of customers worldwide who are currently enjoying efficiency and savings of thin provisioning storage with DataCore?s SANmelody? and SANsymphony? software solutions.

?It?s become indispensable,? said Ryan Engh, IS Infrastructure Manager, Wasatch Advisors.  ?Before, DataCore, we were buying more storage than we actually needed at any time because we had to over-allocate to make sure that the capacity was there when we needed it. Now, with DataCore thin provisioning, we only allocate what we need when we need it, we?ve dramatically reduced our storage over-capacity, and we have effectively reduced our costs and energy footprint by more than 50%.?

According to Mike Gayle, Director of IT, Calvary Chapel Ft. Lauderdale, ?Thin provisioning is a great solution. What made us choose DataCore, besides its low cost of implementation, is that it?s portable software that?s not dependent on a single vendor?s expensive hardware. My investment is protected because DataCore thin provisioning will keep working for me over different generations of platforms for much longer than any hardware-based solution can.?

?Green? Technology Promotes Energy Efficiency, Saves Money and Is Now Available for All to Try
DataCore makes the benefits of thin provisioning practical and affordable, allowing data centres, as well as small and mid size companies, to virtualise, consolidate and automate the provisioning and management of their storage. Pricing starts at £500. Cost savings and user benefits of DataCore thin provisioning include:

• Lowers energy costs and ?carbon footprint?: Highly efficient utilisation reduces space, power and cooling costs because fewer physical disks and arrays are required.
• Reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) by providing up to 50-percent improvements in capacity utilisation, thereby reducing the total amount of storage that must be purchased.
• Better consolidation and efficient load balancing for all storage; capacity usage is optimised and balanced across many application servers.
• Lessens time and resources required to perform storage provisioning tasks. Automates and simplifies by eliminating unnecessary provisioning steps.
• Instantaneous provisioning of storage capacity, significantly reduces disk administration burden and time management
• Eliminates application service disruption by transparently provisioning physical storage capacity
• Smarter purchasing: Facilitates just-in-time storage purchasing by enabling capacity planning across all applications ? not just one

Download and Experience the Benefits
To obtain a 30 day trial copy of DataCore thin provisioning solution, please visit www.datacore.com/download.asp today.

According to Alberto Natal Cruz, PACS System Administrator, Hunterdon Medical Center, “We truly love the fact that DataCore frees us to use whatever hardware WE deem worthy or necessary. We get to decide what is best for us, not some other vendor. I would encourage anyone who is looking at any sort of storage solution to try DataCore for 30 days; it’s free and if you don’t think it is a fit for you, you can move on. How many storage virtualization vendors out there are willing to let you do that?”