DataCore SANsymphony Software Defined Storage

In the fast-changing digital world, data storage must constantly adapt to meet business demands. That's where DataCore SANsymphony comes in—a robust software-defined storage platform that revolutionises data management for organisations. Packed with performance-boosting and reliable features, SANsymphony offers a versatile way to handle large volumes of information. Whether you need top-notch availability, disaster recovery capabilities, or cutting-edge storage virtualisation, this solution stands out among its peers in the competitive software-defined storage market. Let's explore how DataCore's SANsymphony is transforming modern enterprises!

DataCore SANsymphony Overview

DataCore SANsymphony is a cutting-edge solution that harnesses software-defined storage capabilities to streamline data management across diverse environments. It offers the necessary flexibility for organisations to easily adapt to evolving demands while seamlessly integrating with their existing infrastructure.

By abstracting and pooling storage resources, SANsymphony offers a cost-effective solution for businesses to utilise hardware from various vendors without the need for expensive upgrades. Essentially, this allows companies to maximise their current investments.

The strong design of this system allows for a wide range of tasks, catering to both virtualised applications and high-performance computing. Its capabilities, such as automated tiering and intelligent caching, improve performance while reducing latency.

The platform's user-friendly interface streamlines management tasks, freeing up IT teams to prioritise strategic initiatives over routine maintenance. The outcome? A flexible approach to data storage that aligns seamlessly with the fast-paced business landscape of today.

Ensuring uninterrupted service and preparedness for unexpected incidents

In today's digital world, high availability is crucial. Thanks to DataCore SANsymphony, companies can guarantee constant online and accessible storage systems.

With the software's automated failover capabilities, there is no need to worry about interruptions in operations due to a node going down. The system will seamlessly switch over to another node, ensuring continuous functionality without any disruptions.

With built-in replication capabilities, Disaster recovery is made seamless by DataCore. This effortless feature enables organisations to effortlessly mirror data across multiple sites, significantly reducing the risk of data loss.

Furthermore, SANsymphony offers compatibility with a range of hardware and cloud platforms, granting the ability to modify as requirements evolve. Its standout feature is maintaining reliable performance even amidst demanding circumstances.

From unforeseen emergencies to unplanned disruptions, a solid strategy supported by cutting-edge tools such as SANsymphony guarantees your company's ability to withstand challenges and continue functioning during critical times.

The storage virtualisation platform is designed to streamline and enhance the management of data storage.

As a top player in the world of software-defined storage, DataCore SANsymphony boasts an unparalleled storage virtualisation platform that revolutionises data management for businesses. By seamlessly integrating different storage systems into one user-friendly interface, it streamlines operations and boosts efficiency.

A particularly noteworthy aspect is its tiered storage management capabilities. This allows organisations to efficiently transfer data between high-performance and lower-cost tiers depending on usage patterns. As a result, not only is performance enhanced, but costs related to data management are also significantly reduced.

In addition, DataCore's robust analytics tools offer valuable information on usage and performance metrics. This enables IT teams to make well-informed choices regarding resource allocation and future growth plans.

DataCore SANsymphony's flexibility empowers businesses to swiftly adjust to evolving demands without needing to completely revamp their current infrastructure. Embracing this software-defined approach allows companies to effortlessly expand their environments while retaining control over their valuable data assets.

Given its powerful features, it's no surprise that numerous businesses are adopting DataCore's SANsymphony as their go-to solution for storage requirements. Its incorporation of fault tolerance, disaster recovery choices, and effective storage virtualisation make it an indispensable tool for contemporary IT systems prioritising adaptability and reliability in overseeing crucial corporate data.

The SANsymphony software by DataCore offers a strong SDS solution with advanced virtualisation and data management features. It aims to assist companies in enhancing, controlling, and securing their storage systems for the future. By abstracting the physical storage infrastructure, SANsymphony creates a unified pool of resources that can be assigned to workloads on demand. This method separates storage management and services from the hardware, enabling businesses to gain more agility, productivity, and durability while reducing expenses.

Important aspects and functionalities

Storage virtualisation is the process of abstracting physical storage resources into a logical pool, allowing for easier management and utilisation.

SANsymphony's storage virtualisation capability serves as the foundation of the system, unifying and combining a wide range of storage resources into one cohesive virtual storage pool. This versatile feature extends to multiple types of storage devices, such as DAS, SAN, NAS, and cloud storage, enabling businesses to make use of their current investments while streamlining operations. Through an abstract layer between the hardware and applications, SANsymphony increases resource efficiency and streamlines management of storage, ensuring that applications have access to the required resources regardless of the underlying hardware setup.

The accessibility and duplication of data are both important factors to consider when managing information.

Uninterrupted accessibility is a crucial aspect for essential applications. SANsymphony addresses this by utilising synchronous mirroring, which instantly duplicates data across multiple storage nodes, ensuring constant data availability. In the event of a node malfunction, SANsymphony immediately transitions to a secondary node, guaranteeing smooth continuity without compromising data integrity. For dispersed locations, asynchronous replication can be implemented to maintain consistent data across remote sites, allowing for disaster recovery and minimising periods of inactivity.

Achieving higher levels of performance is a key goal for organisations. To accelerate this process, it is important to focus on enhancing productivity and efficiency across all aspects of the business.
DataCore's patented Adaptive Parallel I/O technology leverages multi-core processing capabilities to optimise I/O operations, resulting in improved throughput and reduced latency. This advantage is especially valuable for I/O-intensive applications such as databases, virtualisation platforms, and analytics workloads. Additionally, SANsymphony utilises intelligent caching with server-side RAM and flash memory for faster read and write operations, enhancing the performance of both transactional and sequential workloads.

Automated storage tiering refers to the process of automatically moving data between different storage tiers, based on its frequency of access or importance.

The auto-tiering function of SANsymphony intelligently distributes data among various storage tiers, taking into account performance and cost preferences. Data that is frequently accessed is automatically transferred to faster tiers, like SSDs or NVMe, while less-used data is placed on more affordable, higher-capacity tiers such as HDDs. This not only enhances performance but also aids in cutting down storage expenses by ensuring that vital data is stored on the most expensive media.

One aspect to consider is the implementation of thin provisioning and space reclamation. This refers to the practice of efficiently managing storage resources by allocating just enough space for current needs, rather than pre-allocating excessive amounts. This approach can help maximise available storage space and avoid waste.

Thin provisioning, in addition to allowing for the allocation of storage on an as-needed basis, also enables over-provisioning without requiring immediate utilisation of physical capacity. This ultimately improves storage efficiency and reduces capital expenses by postponing hardware purchases until actual capacity is required. Additionally, SANsymphony's space reclamation feature automatically recovers unused space from decommissioned volumes or deleted files, ensuring that storage utilisation remains optimised over an extended period of time.

Snapshot and Continuous Data Protection are two types of data backup techniques that serve to protect important information from loss. While Snapshot is a form of periodic backups that capture the entire state of a system at a specific point in time, Continuous Data Protection constantly captures changes in real-time, allowing for faster recovery in the event of data loss. Both Snapshot and Continuous Data Protection are valuable tools in safeguarding crucial data.

In order to safeguard data from corruption, accidental deletion, or ransomware attacks, SANsymphony provides both snapshot-based and continuous data protection (CDP). Snapshots enable quick restoration of point-in-time copies of data, reducing the risk of data loss. CDP takes this a step further by keeping track of all changes and allowing administrators to easily recover data from any previous point in time without using complicated backup methods.

The integration of multiple sites and cloud services is a key aspect to consider when developing an efficient and seamless system.

In addition to its compatibility with traditional data center setups, SANsymphony takes flexibility a step further by offering multi-site capabilities and easy integration with both public and private cloud platforms. This allows businesses to easily replicate data between sites for disaster recovery purposes, build hybrid cloud structures, or utilise the cloud as a backup destination. This seamless integration empowers enterprises to embrace cloud storage while still enjoying the control and performance advantages of on-premises storage solutions.

Consolidated administration and supervision:

The SANsymphony management console offers a unified interface for configuring, monitoring, and managing storage resources in various environments. Real-time performance metrics, health status, and capacity utilisation can be viewed from one single pane. Automation options, including policy-based management, enable IT teams to simplify repetitive tasks. Additionally, the console's alerting and reporting features assist in proactively detecting and resolving potential issues before they disrupt operations.

Scalability and hardware independence are two vital factors to consider in any technology solution. Ensuring that the system can handle an increase in workload without affecting its performance, as well as being compatible with different types of hardware, is crucial for its success.

One major benefit of SANsymphony is its hardware-agnostic design. It enables the use of many types of storage hardware from different vendors, giving organisations the freedom to select devices based on performance, capacity, and budget. This flexibility eliminates vendor dependence and allows for a combination of legacy storage systems, high-performance flash arrays, and cost-effective cloud storage. As storage requirements increase, SANsymphony can easily scale by adding additional nodes or increasing the capacity of current nodes without interrupting services.

Incorporating with Virtualised and Containerised Systems:

SANsymphony seamlessly integrates with various virtualisation platforms such as VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, and KVM, making it the perfect choice for managing virtual workloads. Additionally, it provides native support for containerised environments by utilising CSI drivers for Kubernetes. As a result, IT teams can easily deliver high-performance and scalable storage for containerised applications, without worrying about any constraints that may hinder modern DevOps processes.

Examples and Advantages

SANsymphony's diverse range of features makes it suitable for a wide array of use cases, spanning from conventional data centre settings to contemporary cloud and hybrid implementations. Among the key applications are:

Modernising data centres is crucial for companies to stay competitive in today's market. The swift pace of technological advancements demands businesses to continuously update and improve their data centre infrastructure. Neglecting to do so could result in falling behind and losing potential growth opportunities.

Through the abstraction and virtualisation of current storage hardware, SANsymphony presents businesses with the opportunity to upgrade their data centre infrastructure without incurring expensive and disruptive replacement costs. This software solution seamlessly incorporates outdated storage systems into a contemporary, software-defined framework, prolonging their usefulness and elevating their functionalities through cutting-edge data services.

When unforeseen events occur, it is crucial for organisations to have plans in place to bounce back and maintain operations. This includes both disaster recovery strategies and business continuity measures.
SANsymphony's synchronous and asynchronous replication capabilities make it a robust option for creating disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity infrastructures. This allows for data replication between primary and secondary sites, ensuring that vital applications stay accessible in case of a site-wide outage. With automated failover and failback procedures, downtime is decreased, and DR testing becomes more seamless, assisting organisations in meeting stringent recovery point and recovery time objectives (RPO and RTO).

Cloud adoption and hybrid cloud deployments are becoming increasingly popular in today's business landscape. Many companies are now embracing cloud solutions, including hybrid clouds, to improve their operations and meet the demands of a fast-paced market. The use of cloud technology, along with hybrid cloud deployments, has transformed the way businesses operate and has become an essential aspect of modern business strategies. This shift towards cloud-based solutions is driven by the need for effective and efficient data management, cost savings, and scalability. As such, more and more organisations are turning to cloud adoption and hybrid cloud deployments as a key strategy for growth and success in today's competitive market.

With SANsymphony's support for cloud integration, businesses can easily expand their on-premises storage into the cloud, resulting in a hybrid storage setup. This is particularly useful for scenarios such as utilising cloud-based backups, storing archives in the cloud, or establishing disaster recovery sites. Thanks to SANsymphony's centralised management and advanced data services, companies can ensure uniform policies and reliable performance in their hybrid environments.

Improving the speed and performance of databases and applications is crucial. This involves enhancing their acceleration capabilities for optimal functioning.

SANsymphony's performance optimisation features are particularly advantageous to applications that are sensitive to storage latency, such as databases, ERP systems, and analytics platforms. By employing parallel I/O processing, intelligent caching, and auto-tiering techniques, SANsymphony guarantees fast access to crucial data for these applications, leading to heightened responsiveness and increased throughput.

Consolidation and efficiency in storage are crucial for optimal performance

Organisations that have varying storage systems often encounter difficulties such as low usage, fragmented storage pools, and complicated management. To tackle these challenges, SANsymphony unifies all storage resources into a common pool that can be controlled through a single console. Additionally, features like thin provisioning, auto-tiering, and space reclamation boost efficiency and lead to cost savings while streamlining capacity planning.

Assistance for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI):

In order for VDI environments to function effectively, they require reliable, fast storage solutions. With its efficient I/O acceleration and dependable high availability, SANsymphony is an ideal match for VDI implementations. Capable of handling a large number of virtual desktops with minimal delay, it guarantees a smooth user experience at all times, even during busy periods.

HPC and Big Data are two essential components in today's digital landscape. They play a crucial role in handling large and complex sets of data, revolutionising industries such as healthcare, finance, and transportation. These technologies have the ability to process vast amounts of data at incredible speeds, enabling organisations to gain valuable insights and make informed decisions.

The parallel I/O processing capabilities and support for high-speed storage media, like NVMe, offered by SANsymphony make it an attractive option for HPC and big data settings. It is well-equipped to handle the demanding performance needs of HPC workloads, allowing for more efficient processing of large datasets by researchers and data scientists.
The various options for licensing and deployment.

DataCore SANsymphony offers a versatile licensing option, giving organisations the freedom to customise their choice of features and storage capacity to suit their specific needs. This software is suitable for deployment in a range of setups, including small two-node clusters and multi-site environments. The licensing structure is usually based on the overall managed capacity, providing the flexibility to scale up as storage demands grow.

The software offers multiple ways of deployment, either on standard x86 servers or virtual machines. This allows for a diverse range of environments, such as traditional data centres, remote branch offices, and cloud-based setups. Additionally, organisations have the choice of hyperconverged configurations, where compute and storage are closely linked, or disaggregated architectures that manage storage separately from compute resources.

DataCore SANsymphony Summary

DataCore SANsymphony is a comprehensive software-defined storage solution that enables organisations to modernise their storage infrastructure and support a variety of use cases. It offers a hardware-agnostic design, a robust feature set, and performance-enhancing technologies that allow for virtualisation, optimisation, and protection of storage resources in diverse environments. From data centre consolidation to disaster recovery and application acceleration, SANsymphony is a versatile choice for organisations looking to streamline their storage processes.

With SANsymphony, organisations can achieve greater agility, performance, and resilience, all while lowering storage costs and avoiding vendor lock-in. As a result, SANsymphony is a perfect choice for businesses who need the power, resiliency and flexibility of a software defined storage solution.