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SANmelody™ software converts PC servers into cost-effective
expansion disk servers. Their added capacity appears as additional
internal drives to disk-starved servers on LANs or SANs.
This simple solution eliminates the need to commission extra
application servers when the existing systems have no more
room to add disks. Advanced options include point-in-time
snapshots, auto failover across redundant disk servers, auto
provisioning of disk space and long-distance asynchronous
replication over IP WANs. These functions are host-independent
and operate without occupying resources on the application
servers.
To enhance application security and availability, SANmelody-equipped
disk servers can maintain up to date copies (mirror images)
of critical data currently housed on internal disk drives.
SANmelody accelerates performance through built-in caching
that minimises delays from slower mechanical drives. The software
equitably distributes the available disk space to multiple
applications spread across several machines by carving out
smaller logical disks from larger physical disks. Ethernet
iSCSI host connections and Fibre Channel high-bandwidth ports
are supported. Like other powerful Windows-based software,
SANmelody runs on a wide choice of hardware platforms and
disk drives. Windows, Linux, Unix, NetWare and MacOS applications
may concurrently take advantage of the added gigabytes or
terabytes of external disk space.
Operational and Economic
Benefits
SANmelody™ software brings the following benefits
to companies that have maximised their servers' internal
disk storage: |
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Least costly mechanism to expand disk space beyond
existing server capacity |
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No need to deploy another copy of an application
on a separate machine just to add disks |
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Addresses broader requirement for higher availability
and better data protection by allowing a redundant copy
of critical volumes to be kept separate from application
servers |
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Enables rapid recovery from catastrophic application
server failure by allowing redundant copy to be quickly
reassigned to a replacement server without hardware
changes |
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Follows familiar approach of commissioning a general
purpose server to handle a specialised task |
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Eliminates wasteful disk space that may have been
orphaned behind dedicated servers |
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Makes it easy to take advantage of advanced data
protection functions when they are needed |
Additional Benefits from SANmelody
Advanced Options
Customers receive the following enhanced benefits when they
incorporate one or more of SANmelody's advanced options into
their environment:
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Accelerates the I/O response time experienced by
applications |
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Increases the bandwidth available between applications
and storage |
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Reduces application downtime for backups to near
zero |
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Ensures rapid recovery to a known good point-in-time |
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Offloads application server from transmitting disk
contents during backups |
Auto-Failover Option
[between redundant disk servers] |
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Dramatically enhances data availability |
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Makes possible non-intrusive disk server hardware
changes |
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Your choice of Fibre Channel or IP (iSCSI) connections |
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Takes the guess work out of capacity allocation |
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Ensures optimal utilization of available capacity |
Asynchronous IP Replication
[between distant disk servers] |
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Allows remote sites to maintain up to date copies
of local volumes |
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Facilitates continuous data sharing between remote
sites |
Copyright DataCore
Software, reproduced with permission.
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