DataCore | Storage Migration and Virtual Server Migration

DataCore Transporter Option for SANmelody and SANsymphony - Makes Migration to and Within Virtual Server Environments Fast, Simple and Practical
Migrating disk images and workloads between different operating systems, hypervisors and storage subsystems has always been a difficult and time consuming task involving lengthy backups and restores followed by complicated format conversions. Augie Gonzalez, Director Product Marketing, DataCore Software, notes, unlike inferior alternatives, DataCore takes advantage of its intrinsic ability to generalize virtual disks to make source images from one Windows environment immediately available on a different physical or virtual platform. The migration takes place in the background without modifying the original source, avoiding potentially irreversible migrations.

Time Saving Migration Transport System Images between Physical and Virtual Machines Quickly and Automatically in VMware, Citrix and Microsoft Virtual Environments
These new and advanced capabilities have been packaged as a Transporter option to SANmelody and SANsymphony software licenses. Transporter can be used to perform an unlimited number of migrations. Transporter is the quickest and most general way to import Windows images, including the boot drive, between similar or dissimilar physical or virtual platforms without waiting for lengthy copies or conversions.
Download: Transporter Option Presentation

DataCore's wide array of data migration features, solutions and services not only help you move data and system images between storage systems, but also assess, plan, and execute a migration project. DataCore's network of trained and authorized solution providers can provide the data management experience and expertise to help you overcome the obstacles typically associated with data migrations, such as time, cost, application downtime, and loss of productivity.

DataCore: Simplifies Windows Data Migration for Virtual Infrastructures
Virtual infrastructures respond to change by dynamically moving workloads and key resources between physical servers. In addition to live migration of virtual machines, users can implement DataCore SANmotion for simple data migration across the SAN. Virtual servers make it easier to do disaster recovery but they still require storage that supports fault tolerant synchronous mirroring, low-impact snapshots and asynchronous remote replication in order to implement cost effective disaster recovery plan.

"SANmotion migrates disks plus their content around the SAN to wherever it makes the most sense. Users gain tremendous flexibility. It sure is a lot easier to move disks and migrate data through 'point and click' versus running around the building to set up systems on each and every desktop," said Ziya Aral, chairman and chief technology officer, DataCore Software.

SANvantage MIGRATE Services enable the migration of your existing data to your new DataCore SAN. Migrations are completed on-site and the number of days involved depends on the complexity of the environment. SANvantage MIGRATE Services includes an assessment of the existing storage infrastructure, migrated storage architecture design and migration execution. SANvantage MIGRATE Services delivers everything needed to get your DataCore SAN ready for production.

SANsymphony Proxied Volumes. Proxied Volumes, an optional licensed feature available for SANsymphony, enables many of the SANsymphony software advanced services to operate on top of pre-formatted volumes already in use before SANsymphony was introduced into the configuration, without modifying the structure of existing data and with no or minimal disruption to current operations. Proxied Volumes are most often used as a temporary measure to migrate data from existing storage arrays or disks to a new architecture or to accelerate a deployment to more quickly receive the benefits of SANsymphony features. Proxied volumes require a file system of some kind and support basically all the major disk formats, such as Windows, Unix, AIX, VMware and so on.

SANsymphony supports Thin provisioning "Hot-Swap" migration. This is the ability to migrate data on physical disk devices within a thin provisioning pool from one device to another and then "hot swap" (replace) that device. If you imagine a storage pool with existing devices, the thin provisioning migration facility is of great value when it comes to adding new disks or storage arrays to the pool. This facility enables users to take the data that resides on existing disks and migrate it to the new added disks. The old devices can remain in the pool for new uses, or they can be removed from the pool and repurposed for other uses in the system. Either way, system and network administrators need not worry about impacting high availability, disrupting the application servers, or interfering with virtual machines that have access to the data.

Live data migration beyond Windows. Live Data Migration enables an administrator to move data ( Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX, etc) to any other storage device under management of SANsymphony in real-time. Data can come from a disk volume (a logical unit number or LUN) on any storage array - IBM, EMC, Hitachi, HP, etc. The real benefit with these services is that the Live Data Migration provides users with the ability to move data from any platform to any other storage device, "live," and to do so non-disruptively. Let's say a company has an application server and it is being "fed" by multiple LUNs from an IBM server. When DataCore is brought into the picture, the DataCore system gives an administrator the ability to literally take the IBM LUN, and serve the volume to the DataCore system, and SANsymphony will pass it straight back to the original owning application server.

By using DataCore's virtual volume management services, those volumes can be mirrored to another SANsymphony system - providing the enterprise with all of the benefits DataCore is known for: data is mirrored, system speed is increased by way of DataCore caching algorithms, administrators have the advantages of being able to work with thin-provisioned volumes, etc. "All of the inherent capabilities and benefits of SANsymphony can be available to an enterprise, if it simply passes the volumes containing the 'live application data' through DataCore's SANsymphony. "When that data volume is passed through SANsymphony it is simply remapped to the application server so the server can immediately run the server applications. While the application server is running DataCore's software adds value to those volumes - Caching performance, High Availability, Snapshot, AIM, etc."

DataCore also offers "Live Data Migration Services" in a pay-by-service business model. As opposed to buying a long term SANsymphony license, users can use what they need on a monthly basis, through its professional services partners. "DataCore can do this because we support heterogeneous environments and because we are hardware agnostic," said George Teixeira, president and CEO, DataCore Software. "DataCore makes it easy for users to use whatever platform they please and to migrate data 'at will' - from any platform, to any platform."

Live Data Migration Services are offered through authorized DataCore partners. These services are priced on a per month basis fee depending on the amount of storage capacity being migrated from one brand of hardware to another.