DataCore | SANmelody

SANmelody Highlights

SANmelody 3.0: DataCore Aims Major Software Enhancements at Shared Storage Requirements for Virtual Server Infrastructures

New Capabilities added to SANmelody 3.0 in Update Release

Below you'll find a brief description of SANmelody™ Software Features and Options. For additional information, review the DataSheets, Technical Features Descriptions and Solutions Cards.

Base Capabilities
The base software package enables you to transform a general purpose Intel/AMD server into a Powered by DataCore™ disk server with the following essential features:

iSCSI disk emulation. Serves well-behaved virtual disks to popular operating systems using standard iSCSI protocol over Ethernet.
Support for numerous types of disk drives. Supports any disk drives qualified for Windows (i.e. SCSI, EIDE, Fibre Channel, SATA, etc.) and transparently bridges between the drive interface and the iSCSI or optional Fibre Channel host connection. Please refer to this FAQ on DataCore's SANmelody Technical Support Site for supported disk drives.
Performance Acceleration - I/O read and write caching. Uses the server's local memory (RAM) as a cache to improve application response time.
Virtual Disk Pooling. Divides or aggregates physical disks to meet various capacity requirements.
Intuitive administrative GUI. Uses Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Snap-ins for simple point and click configuration and management.
Performance displays. Leverages Windows' built-in Perfmon to trace SANmelody-specific performance counters.
Event logging. Assists in troubleshooting via Windows' built-in Event Viewer and event log.
SANmotion. Data migration capability enabling users to move, access and serve and pass through "Live Data" pre-formatted Windows disks across the SAN. More info and animated slide show.

Advanced Modules, Features and Options (also see descriptions of Feature-Packed Bundles)

Fibre Channel Disk Emulation Software: Serves well-behaved virtual disks to popular operating systems using Fibre Channel connections.
Snapshot and Volume Cloning Software: Point-in-time snapshots are generated using copy-on-write technology for selected virtual volumes. Snapshots may also be triggered from the Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) in Windows Server 2008/2003 hosts attached to the disk server.
Proxy Volume: Application transparent migration of data storage; Simplifies replacement or repurposing of old arrays - migrates the old to the new.
Thin Provisioning Software: Just-in-time thin provisioning takes the guesswork out of LUN allocation. The software presents large virtual volumes to applications but only allocates disk blocks dynamically as the application consumes it. For more information, see Thin Provisioning.
Asynchronous IP Replication Option: The Asynchronous IP Mirroring (AIM) software replicates selected volumes between a pair of disk servers using native IP connections over long distances. Each disk server in the AIM connection must be separately licensed with the SANmelody AIM option. Click here for notes. Get more technical detail on how Asynchronous IP Mirroring (AIM) works.
High Availability, Synchronous Mirroring Software: Synchronously mirrors writes between a pair of disk servers using either iSCSI/LAN or Fibre Channel connections. Both disk servers may actively process I/Os with one handling primary paths for some of the volumes and secondary paths for others. In the event of a failure, the companion server takes over with the mirrored volumes. Hosts must be adequately configured with qualified multi-pathing drivers to take advantage of this automatic failover feature. Each disk server must be separately licensed with the HA option.
High Availability Multi Path software: DataCore provides several Multi path software solutions for application servers that ensure continued I/O access in the case of a physical path failure. The DataCore MPIO Driver is based on the industry standard Windows MPIO specification. This driver provides Fibre Channel and iSCSI path failover for Windows 2008 and Windows 2003 Server. Note for MPIO on Windows 2008: FC HBA and hardware iSCSI HBA support, for software iSCSI a hotfix from Microsoft is required to use its iSCSI driver. Go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961570/en-us and download the appropriate hotfix. In addition, there are several other 3rd-party Multipath driver solutions that DataCore has qualified for use on various operating system environments. See the Application Server High Availability Products for additional details and specific O.S. Revisions supported.
DataCore VSS Software Option (Snapshot for SQL Server, Exchange and VSS Aware Applications) Simplified disk-to-disk backup for rapid recovery. DataCore supports Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) which provides the ability to create a point-in-time copy for all VSS aware applications including SQL Server, Exchange and Windows file systems to ensure the applications are in a consistent state to enable rapid recovery from a point-in-time and to simplify backup processes. The volumes are delivered to the application servers from SANmelody. DataCore snapshot commands can be issued either locally or remotely (via synchronous disk-to-disk mirrors or AIM Asynchronous IP Mirroring) to enable back-up copies or an offline application to utilize the data volumes. See VSS animation slides for functional operation.
SANmaestro: Monitors, analyzes and reports critical SAN storage and Windows events as well as performance metrics and utilization information over variable time periods for trend analysis. For more information, see: SANmaestro Overview.
Transporter: Fastest, most general way to migrate & import Windows images, including the boot drive, between dissimilar physical or virtual platforms without waiting for lengthy disk-to-disk copies or error prone conversions. For more information, see: Transporter Option

Additional Software

DataCore Adapter for Citrix® StorageLink™: The DataCore Adapter for Citrix® StorageLinkTechnology gives Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V system administrators the power to discover, provision and control DataCore virtual disks directly from server virtualization consoles. Requests for additional capacity, specific channel connections, point-in-time snapshots and thin provisioned LUNs are just some of the functions supported. See: StorageLink

Asynchronous IP Mirrors (AIM) Client: AIM client runs and operates as a standalone application on a Windows application server independent of SANmelody. AIM Client operates within the confines of a single Windows application server and can act as a AIM source for locally attached volumes only. AIM client provides the capability to asynchronously mirror select volume write operations (based on configuration) to a remote site running SANmelody with the AIM option (the AIM destination). Click here for notes.
Hypervisor Integration Toolkit for VMware Virtual Center: The DataCore VMware Integration Toolkit aids in the integration of DataCore storage services and management applications and the virtualization world of VMware Infrastructure (VI) Client. Tools in the toolkit automate the discovery of ESX hosts and virtual machines, adding them as application servers in the SAN, and the configuration of adapters and channels. For more information, see: VMware Integration Toolkit
UpTempo: A powerful, performance accelerator software for Windows-based systems. It dramatically speeds up applications by making the computer system read and write data to its disk drives more efficiently. For more information, see: UpTempo Overview

Additional Feature Highlights

Non-disruptive Substitution - Replace storage arrays in the background.
Copies the contents of a designated storage array (or individual drive) to the unit that will replace it while applications continue to use the logical volumes. The new array (or drive) transparently takes over once it matches the contents of the original drives so that the older drives can be taken offline without impacting users.

Redundant Pathing - Configure network paths between storage virtualization nodes.
These paths may be diversely routed to ensure that if one primary network connection is broken or taken offline, synchronous mirroring between nodes will continue uninterrupted over the alternate connection.

Prioritized Recovery - Prioritize resynchronization of mirrored disks.
Ensures that the most critical, volumes are resynchronized first when a node or its storage is taken off-line during an upgrade or unplanned outage.

Group Snapshot and Clone Command - Synchronize online snapshots across inter-dependent volumes.
Coordinates multiple snapshots to occur at the same time across a group of related volumes. This ensures point-time synchronization of file systems and application data that reside on different disks. It ensures that clones created on new equipment are an exact replica of their predecessor.

Content Migration - Relocate Active Drives into Virtual Storage Pool.
Enables existing drives formatted with NTFS, Unix, Linux and other file systems to be incorporated into the SANmelody storage pool. These physical drives are first un-mounted from the application servers where they were once active, and reconnected behind a SANmelody node. The SANmelody node will then act as an intermediary between the application server and these drives. To take full advantage of SANmelody advanced virtualization features, their contents may be copied to virtual disks using snapshots or synchronous mirroring. The relocated drives can then be wiped clean and included in the physical storage pool as additional capacity, or they may be decommissioned.

FCoE Connectivity - Access Fibre Channel storage pool via the LAN switching infrastructure.
Application servers and other storage consumers can access SANmelody nodes equipped with Fibre Channel SAN connections using their Ethernet Network Interface Cards (NICs). This capability takes advantage of the new Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) protocol and FCoE-compliant switches.