COWICHE, Wash. & FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.– DataCore Software, a leading provider of storage virtualization software, today announced that Evans Fruit Company has deployed DataCore Software for storage virtualization and Citrix XenServers for server virtualization. The combination of DataCore and Citrix delivers a highly-available virtual infrastructure that makes provisioning new servers and adding disk space easy and far less time consuming. “The virtual infrastructure that encompasses both server and storage virtualization has made my life easier for provisioning new servers and adding disk space,” comments Jeremy Hines, Manager of IS, Evans Fruit Company. “And it is the total virtualized environment, spanning Citrix Xen and SANmelody that makes this possible.”

Evans Fruit Company had two key business objectives: to overcome the time-consuming burden of updating drives with direct-attached storage, and the labor-intensive burden of managing physical servers. These objectives would be resolved by virtualizing both storage and servers, enabling the IT department to be more efficient and productive.

A Virtualization Environment Based on DataCore and Citrix That Meets Business Objectives

Founded in 1949, Evans Fruit Company is the largest grower of Red Delicious apples in the state of Washington. The IT infrastructure relied upon to run this top fruit producer has recently gone through a huge upgrade, whereby DataCore partner Moose Logic has deployed two DataCore SANmelody, software-based, SANs that provide storage virtualization to Evans, while Citrix XenServers have virtualized the company’s servers. Prior to bringing in DataCore, Evans was reliant on direct-attached storage. Whereas they had some replication set up, it was all based on individual, point solutions for specific servers – Exchange, Payroll, etc.

“We pulled all of our data from direct-attached storage over to the DataCore virtualized SAN and changed all of the servers to virtual servers running on Xen,” states Hines. “Now the Citrix XenServers point to the DataCore virtualized storage for both their operating system and all the necessary data storage. This DataCore-Citrix combination works really well.”

The DataCore SAN was implemented prior to virtualizing servers; however, both storage and server virtualization happened in the same month, as a “Step 1” and “Step 2” process. Now running on the highly-available virtual infrastructure are Microsoft Exchange and Windows Share (for Microsoft, Excel, etc.), as well as Payroll, which is a legacy, DOS-application that uses a Btrieve, flat file database.

Three Xen virtual hosts, meaning three physical servers, run all of the virtual machines. Two DataCore SANs running on SUN x4250s are physically separated, albeit in the same building, connected to each other via Ethernet. According to the IT staff, SANmelody makes it much easier to add storage to a machine, which is done by carving a new LUN (logical unit number) and then attaching it to the machine. Doing so immediately provides administrators with what amounts to a new hard drive, the size of which is easily increased. Notes Hines, “You carve out a new LUN, copy the data, and then drop the old LUN. It is pretty straightforward. We really like that in terms of ease-of-use.”

A virtualized, shared storage infrastructure made enormous sense to Hines and his team. Moreover, Hines stresses that thin-provisioning is a feature that enables Evans Fruit Company to forego buying large quantities of disk space up front, only to leave most of it empty.

The efficiency of virtual storage extends to the servers, which are much easier to manage in a virtualized environment. “Replacing a server on physical hardware can be quite the trick,” remarks Hines. “With virtualized servers, I can easily decide that I want to modify the servers or do upgrades. This can be done by live-migrating some servers from an existing node, powering down and old node, plugging in a new node, and transferring the master operations role to the new node. I can then bring the servers up on the new node, and finish replacing the whole cluster that way. This way, I have suddenly upgraded processor and possibly RAM, without having to do anything to make the servers work again.”

As far as the overall implementation itself, Hines lauds DataCore partner Moose Logic. “The virtualization implementation went as smoothly, as quickly and as easily as it did because Moose Logic is as good as they are at what they do,” he notes. “As far as the set-up and the planning of the deployment, they really know their stuff. I just can’t say enough good things about Moose Logic – I am definitely a fan.”

A Key Differentiator: DataCore Redundancy – High Availability Made Easy

Hines emphasizes that DataCore gives him peace of mind due to the synchronous mirroring capabilities – whereby redundancy is assured via two nodes in the same (or stretched, metro-clustered) location. Synchronous mirroring enables Evans Fruit Company to run DataCore storage virtualization software on two separate hosts. He notes that many entry-level SANs that possess two controllers actually have the controllers built into the same box. Two machines in the same casing do not offer the benefits of two separate hosts that can be stretched across a campus or metro region. He is equally impressed that, with DataCore, he can use industry-standard hard drives instead of using proprietary gear that plugs into a vendor’s hardware SAN.

“One of the great things about DataCore is that it is easy to have two copies of SANmelody running on different nodes so that our data is redundant,” notes Hines. “If we lose one node, we are OK. For our XenServers, we have a pool of XenServer hosts – so that any machine can be booted off of any host because they are all linked back to both nodes.”

Beyond this, Hines is equally pleased that DataCore also offers remote (asynchronous) replication, whereby a copy of the SAN can be supported at a very remote, offsite location. He stated that many of the entry-level SANs that Evans Fruit Company considered do not support asynchronous replication. “Having the ability to do asynchronous replication is a big deal for us – and something we will certainly embrace in the future,” comments Hines.

Software-based Storage Virtualization Wins the Day

DataCore’s storage virtualization approach is software-based, an approach shared by Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer towards server virtualization—a key differentiator that appealed to Evans Fruit Company.

“The fact that DataCore offers a software solution was highly appealing to us,” concludes Hines. “Obviously you need good server hardware to run it on, for the sake of reliability. DataCore’s software runs on Windows 2008 x64. It has all the features that a higher-end SAN would have, but is available for a smaller implementation.”

About Evans Fruit Company

Evans Fruit Company is fully committed and specialized in providing our partners and customers with consistent ongoing supplies of fresh, crunchy, flavorful apples at service levels that others can not or will not attempt to compete with.

For more information, call (509) 678-4127 or visit http://www.evansfruitco.com.

About DataCore Software

DataCore Software develops the storage virtualization software needed to get the highest availability, fastest performance and maximum utilization from storage resources in physical and virtual IT environments. It provides the critical 3rd dimension on which the success of server and desktop virtualization projects hinge, regardless of the models and brands of storage devices used.

For more information, call (877) 780-5111 or visit www.datacore.com.

About Moose Logic

Moose Logic is a Citrix Gold Solution Advisor and a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, in addition to being a DataCore partner, and specializes in virtualization solutions. For more information, call (206) 774-0619, or visit http://www.mooselogic.com/about.

DataCore, SANmelody and the DataCore logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. Other DataCore product or service names or logos referenced herein are trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. All other products, services and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V and DataCore Software’s Storage Virtualization Power the New Virtual Infrastructure at this Wholesale Distributor

SEATTLE and FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida – December 9, 2009 – DataCore Software, a leading provider of storage virtualization, business continuity and disaster recovery software solutions, today announced its SANmelody storage virtualization solution has been deployed along with Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 R2 Hyper-V™ at Northwest Wholesale Florists (NWF) in Seattle. Family-owned and operated, NWF is a distributor of fresh-cut flowers, potted plants and floral supplies in downtown Seattle. “What we have found with the DataCore and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 + Hyper-V combination is a virtual infrastructure that is redundant, reliable, flexible and expandable,” stated Mary Toupin, Office Manager, Northwest Wholesale Florists. “Moreover, the redundant storage with DataCore complements the redundancy built into the VM system. We are very pleased with the way the system has performed.”

A Virtual Infrastructure that Combines Servers and Storage – with Live Migration Functionality

As their trusted technology advisor, NWF relies on the IT counsel and direction from Moose Logic. Moose Logic’s recommendation was that what it needed was a more resilient, highly-available system leveraging virtualization and storage area network (SAN) technology, while at the same time improving the performance of NWF’s key applications – Macola, Microsoft Exchange, Outlook, Office as well as a few other applications to support point of sale, credit card swipes, etc. The objective was also to improve data protection for NWF – through a backup solution and other measures.

According to Doug Otani, General Manager, Northwest Wholesale Florists, “Our IT environment is now comprised of a virtual infrastructure whereby DataCore SANmelody is deployed in conjunction with a clustered Hyper-V system. With a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V cluster, our company now has the ability to live migrate our virtual machines (VMs). Because these VMs can “live migrate” between the two hosts, the DataCore-Hyper-V virtual infrastructure minimizes and even eliminates downtime – when we need to do system maintenance.”

The original desire to upgrade its IT infrastructure was driven by the fact that NWF was moving to a new warehouse – and needed to do that while running operations from the existing warehouse. NWF looked to Moose Logic to design a new IT infrastructure system and provide a smooth transition. In this case, Moose Logic thought that there were a number of benefits in deploying Hyper-V, even before the release of Windows Server 2008 R2. However, after the R2 release of Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V has been infused with live migration functionality – which was not in Hyper-V prior to R2. “As a reseller, the combination of DataCore with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V gives our firm and this customer a lot of flexibility,” commented Scott Gorcester, President, Moose Logic, a solutions provider and DataCore partner in the Pacific Northwest. “Using DataCore storage virtualization combined with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V in joint configurations is already proving to be a great combination for both resellers and users alike.”

Re-purposing Existing Hardware and Deploying Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V

Knowing that there were two sound pieces of hardware that could be re-purposed, Moose Logic recommended a solution based on Windows Server 2008 R2 running Hyper-V. The firm built the customer two Hyper-V servers with System Center Virtual Machine Manager, running in a failover cluster. Coupled with the clustered pair of Hyper-V servers is a pair of DataCore SANmelody servers – one on an existing HP DL 380 G5 that was repurposed after adding new disk drives and more memory and the other on a new HP DL 380 G5 server to match the existing one. These G5 servers became the SAN nodes. This system went live at the customer’s new location on October 1, 2009. Thirty-plus (30+) users benefit from the system daily.

Delivering Peace of Mind and Avoiding Unnecessary Downtime

Scott Gorcester of Moose Logic, who assured the management team at NWF that the Windows 2008 Server with Hyper-V was the right way to go, concluded, “The bottom-line is that with the DataCore and Windows 2008 Server R2 with Hyper-V environment, NWF can weather multiple equipment failures and continue to run its business, which ultimately provides peace of mind because the virtual infrastructure avoids unnecessary downtime.”

Gorcester sees the deployment as having been “very, very successful.” And according to him, the performance and stability of the system have been excellent.

“We have actually had a Hyper-V server fail as a result of the hardware device, which was an easy fix,” explained Gorcester. “It has not happened again, but the thing that was just beautiful was that the VMs auto-migrated and there was no downtime at all. My response to the client was, ‘The bad news is one of your servers failed. The good news is it had zero effect on the operation of your business.’ It was the first time I think I ever went to a client and said, ‘You had a failure.’ And they replied, ‘Wow, it worked perfectly.’”

About Northwest Wholesale Florists

Northwest Wholesale Florists is one of the oldest and most respected wholesalers of floral and floral-related products in the Northwest. NWF’s Seattle, Washington headquarters services customers throughout Washington, Oregon and Idaho. For more, visit www.nwwholesaleflorists.com.

About Moose Logic
Moose Logic is a managed services provider that designs, develops and maintains networking systems and IT infrastructures. With over 500 systems under management today, Moose Logic is a recognized leader serving Pacific Northwest businesses of all sizes. Launched in 1993, Moose Logic utilizes industry leading computing solutions, fault-tolerant business critical solutions, and best-of-breed virtualization products. Moose Logic is a certified reseller for Microsoft, Citrix, DataCore Software, NSI Software, Motion Computing Tablets, Ultrabac, Marathon Technologies, Scriptlogic and Watchguard Technologies. For more information on Moose Logic, visit www.mooselogic.com/datacore.

About DataCore Software

DataCore Software, a leading provider of storage virtualization software solutions, fundamentally changes the economics of managing storage with innovative software that combines advanced functions and services with the agility and savings of hardware independence. DataCore lowers the cost and complexity of IT by making storage efficient, fast, flexible, fail-safe and virtual. For more information, call (877) 780-5111 or visit www.datacore.com.

DataCore, SANmelody and the DataCore logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. Other DataCore product or service names or logos referenced herein are trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. All other products, services and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Media Contacts:

Red Nine PR
Stuart Smith
336-896-1874
ssmith@redninePR.com

–or –

DataCore Software
publicrelations@datacore.com

A shared storage approach from DataCore combined with Citrix XenServer delivers high availability – thereby eliminating costly, storage related downtime

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida – March 23, 2009 – DataCore Software, the leading provider of storage virtualization, business continuity and disaster recovery software solutions, today announced that its SANmelody(tm) software has been selected and deployed at Washington Archives Management (WAM) to serve as a high availability virtualized, storage area network (SAN) that works in conjunction with virtual servers from Citrix to deliver the redundancy this customer was desperately seeking. Now WAM has a fault-tolerant storage virtualization infrastructure that provides automated failover and failback recovery in the event of a network or hardware calamity in order to maximize business uptime. WAM is a 50-person archiving service that stores, archives and manages paper records.

“A forward-thinking approach combined with technological advances in virtualization has meant that our firm could avoid past failures,” says Tom Radford, System Administrator, Washington Archives Management. “And by deploying redundancy in our network – as well as leveraging advances like automated failover and multi-pathing, XenMotion and above all a software-based SAN that delivers on the promise of virtualization, WAM has made it possible to eliminate costly, storage related downtime.”

WAM’s bread and butter is hardcopy storage. It also engages in document imaging and X-ray digitizing. WAM archives all of these various documents offsite as part of it service. For over two years, DataCore partner Moose Logic has managed the whole network for WAM. “However, when a hardware failure occurred we took that failure as an opportunity to upgrade and grow our infrastructure,” explains Radford. “DataCore partner Moose Logic was tapped to re-architect how our company addressed storage and did so by deploying a SAN solution from DataCore.”

A hardware failure leads to a fresh start on the storage front

“Two ESX servers had WAM’s environment virtualized onto them, but the ESX servers had no shared storage,” notes Steve Parlee, Senior Systems Consultant, Moose Logic. “The two servers were running local, internal storage – and one had a direct-attached drive shelf. This was not a very convenient set-up because we could not, for example, VMotion the guests between servers in case of a failure.”

Moving the virtualized guests to the other server (in case of a hardware failure) was difficult because there was no shared storage – no SAN was in place, which is necessary to “motion” the virtual guests. As fate would have it, the firm did experience one ESX server failure and therefore was forced to run on only one ESX server. Without redundancy in the network, if any other component had failed, Washington Archives Management would have been “out of business” until it was fixed.

WAM considered two options. The firm could either go back to where it had been with the two VMware ESX servers and simply try to become more stable, or it could do some forward-thinking and put in place a SAN that would make the consequences of hardware failure a thing of the past. “We could have just replaced the ESX server and stayed on the path we were – risking future hardware failures that would yet again impact business operations,” says Parlee. “The choice Washington Archives Management made was to go with a shared storage approach and to use DataCore as the foundation of that whole strategy.”

Utilizing XenServer and shared, network storage – a “no-brainer”

Moose Logic advised WAM to deploy DataCore because it allows the firm to replicate in real time their storage between two nodes. In addition, Moose Logic replaced the ESX servers with Citrix XenServers. With the XenServers, Moose Logic was able to utilize something called multi-pathing. “With muti-pathing, we have been able to take down half of WAM’s network for maintenance – without impacting day-to-day operations,” comments Parlee.

“Because of the shared storage and the fact that the storage is virtual, WAM now has the ability to ‘XenMotion’ the guests back and forth between two different pieces of hardware,” continues Parlee. “The other notable capability is high-availability. If any of the Citrix XenServers were to crash, it will automatically restart on the other server. And what makes this possible is the back-end, shared storage.”

What accounts for the storage being “virtual” lies in the fact that DataCore enables a system administrator to take a “volume” (i.e. a piece of disk space for storage) from each of the two SANmelody nodes and mirror them. When these volumes are mirrored together, this creates a single “virtual volume” which is what is then presented to the application server (e.g. XenServer, Windows Server, etc.). By doing this, the application servers only see the one instance of the “virtual volume,” but in reality that virtual volume is tied to the mirrored volumes. It is this key feature – inherent to SANmelody – that enables the system to failover.

A virtualized IT environment – radically simple, high-availability storage virtualization solution

The redundant SANmelody SAN servers that are currently in operation on the back-end are mirrored to each other using synchronous replication. “It is all about the redundancy – the fault-tolerance for failover,” explains Parlee. “We can lose up to three components – two servers and a switch – and everything keeps running. You see, either one of the SANmelody servers can present storage. Only one is presenting it at any time, but if one goes down, without impacting the environment whatsoever, the system seamlessly switches over to SANmelody number two and just keeps right on running.

Summarizes Radford, “The bigger picture here is that technology like this has previously been prohibitively expensive for a small to mid-size business customer. Sure, large companies have been deploying virtual servers and virtual SANs, but they have had to pay a huge price for doing so. DataCore’s SANmelody enables the small business to get this kind of virtualization environment built and to do so without paying for Fibre Channel or paying over $100,000 for the SAN alone, which is what has made having a SAN unattainable for a large number of customers – before DataCore paved the way.”

Free 30-day trial – Try DataCore Today!

For a free 30-day test drive, please visit: www.datacore.com/SANpackages.

About Washington Archives Management

Washington Archives Management offers a complete range of information management services that are designed to support customers’ strategic and day-to-day operational requirements. The company focuses on providing safe, secure, and economical storage and retrieval options for its customers. Their professional and friendly staff utilizes the latest technological tools to optimize customers’ ability to track, archive and access records. For more information please visit www.washingtonarchives.net.

About Moose Logic

Moose Logic is a managed services provider that designs, develops and maintains networking systems and IT infrastructures. With over 500 systems under management today, Moose Logic is a recognized leader serving Pacific Northwest businesses of all sizes. Launched in 1993, Moose Logic utilizes industry leading computing solutions, fault-tolerant business critical solutions, and best-of-breed virtualization products. Moose Logic is a certified reseller for Microsoft, Citrix, DataCore Software, NSI Software, Motion Computing Tablets, Ultrabac, Marathon Technologies, Scriptlogic and Watchguard Technologies. For more information on Moose Logic, visit www.mooselogic.com.

DataCore Software

DataCore Software, the leading provider of storage virtualization SAN software, fundamentally changes the economics of managing storage with innovative software that combines advanced functions and services with the agility and savings of hardware independence. DataCore lowers the cost and complexity of IT by making storage efficient, fast, flexible, fail-safe and virtual. DataCore’s portable storage server software simplifies and automates capacity expansion and centralizes storage management for Windows, UNIX, Linux, MacOS, NetWare, VMware and other leading open system and virtual server platforms. DataCore is privately held and its corporate headquarters are in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. For more information, call (877) 780-5111 or visit www.datacore.com.

DataCore, the DataCore logo and SANmelody are trademarks or registered trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. Other DataCore product or service names or logos referenced herein are trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. All other products, services and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Corporate Contacts:
DataCore Software
Tel: 954-377-6000
publicrelations@datacore.com

– or –

Red Nine PR
Stuart Smith
336-896-1874
ssmith@redninePR.com