Stories about: DataCore Software

First will come virtualization, then utility storage. That's long been the vision of how enterprise storage will evolve as IT grows increasingly dynamic and on-demand becomes business as usual.

Whether it's to hold a table at a favorite restaurant, book a dream vacation or rent a car, making reservations usually pays off. But for storage and IT administrators feeling the squeeze of shrinking data center floor space and power constraints, the practice of departments "reserving" excess storage they may never actually need is becoming a major problem.

As senior director of enterprise technology operations at Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a prison management firm that handles more than 60 facilities, Brad Wood faces several challenges. His group manages approximately 100TB of data -- including inmate medical records, operational records, e-mail, and so forth -- across four Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) storage arrays in two datacentres. Because of federal and state rules, much of the company's data is mirrored three or four times to keep it accessible in case of failure. Adding to the complexity, Wood buys his hardware based on current price and performance, so he has a mix of suppliers.

Virtualization technology comes in several guises, but it's here today and can be a valuable part of your storage strategy.

DataCore Software has introduced a cut-down version of its SANmelody iSCSI server software, priced at just $US199. This is $US1000 less than the full version. The Lite release supports up to four disk drives but only on single-processor PCs.

Novell is sending into beta test a Business Continuity Cluster (BCC) product that will enables up to four geographically distant clusters, with SANS, to act as one load-balancing unit.

Novell is expected to announce a business-continuity product that lets IT administrators cluster as many as four geographically separate storage-area networks to replicate and mirror data among each other for disaster recovery.

Candera Inc. this week plans to go public with a storage virtualization device after two years of development, joining the race to provide users with technology that can combine different storage subsystems into virtual pools of data.

With major vendors starting to offer storage virtualization technology, many IT managers at last week's Storage Networking World conference in the US said they're ready to begin testing the waters in hopes of increasing their storage capacity utilization rates and automating more operations.

EMC Corp. last week said it plans to develop storage management software for a new line of Brocade Communications Systems Inc. switches that support network-based storage virtualization.

Fujitsu-Softek Monday announced enhancements to its storage resource management software