DataCore Software today announced that it has released new plug-in software to integrate the powerful enterprise-wide storage management capabilities of DataCore’s SANsymphony™-V Storage Hypervisor with VMware vCenter™ Server. The management plug-in software is available immediately for download to all SANsymphony-V customers.
VMware vCenter is the de facto standard for managing VMware virtual infrastructures and the SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor combines powerful storage virtualization and enterprise-wide storage management. Together, these capabilities are seamlessly integrated to allow a VMware administrator to efficiently manage all their virtual machines (VM) and storage resources from a single console.
“The new DataCore Storage Hypervisor Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server combines two industry-leading management solutions to offer customers the best of both worlds through a single view infrastructure management,” said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. “Customers can better manage and realize the full benefits of their desktop, server and storage resources in a VMware virtual environment.”
DataCore and VMware – A Combination Delivering Compelling Benefits
VMware administrators are now able to provision, monitor and manage their storage and server resources from a single pane of glass and perform common storage tasks and complex scheduling workflows to clone, snapshot and restore data stores and VMs without having to become storage experts.
The vCenter Plug-In helps VMware administrators increase productivity and respond faster to user needs in a number of ways, including:
- Enabling an end-to-end view for VMware to storage from a virtual machine, host or virtual disk perspective; central monitoring and management of storage resources
- Rapidly provisioning virtual disks to VMware vSphere®/ESX® hosts
- Creating and restoring snapshots of data stores where VMs are housed
- Scheduling tasks to coordinate workflows between vSphere and SANsymphony-V servers
- Taking consistent snapshots of a data store for validation or before making changes to the environment
- Scheduling recovery clones (full copy) or efficient differential snapshots to rapidly restore VMs
- Employing high-availability mirror protection to virtual disks
- Visualizing current conditions in easy-to-understand terms to simplify troubleshooting and performing root cause analysis for virtual machines and their storage
- Lowering OpEx and enhancing administrator productivity – through automated workflows, task wizards and lesser need for storage training and specialized skill sets
Simplify Difficult Storage Tasks: Snapshots, Clones and Restorations
The software’s built in wizards and simple command menus take the complexity out of creating, scheduling or capturing snapshots of VMs. Administrators simply select the data store housing the specific VMs of interest. The plug-in signals the VMware vCenter Server to quiesce those VMs and then triggers SANsymphony-V to take snapshots of the corresponding data store. Both full clone and differential (lightweight) snapshots are supported. The known positive state in those online snapshots may be used to set up new VMs or quickly recover from malware and user errors that may have damaged their integrity.
Snapshots with a click of the mouse may be scheduled at regular intervals, for instance, Saturday morning at 3:00 a.m. when it will not disrupt daily operations. The workflow can also define how long the snapshots should be retained before being deleted.
VMware administrators want to focus on VMs not storage complexity
Transitioning to a virtualized environment creates new requirements for the effective management of the underlying storage resources that are virtualized. VMware administrators are faced with requests to provision new VMs, set up data stores and manage cloning and snapshot copy operations. There can be a lack of in-depth knowledge of storage systems and no end-to-end management leaving VMware administrators with an incomplete view into how physical resources in the virtual environment are used. This in turn, can increase the amount of time and effort required to manage the environment. Therefore, VMware administrators need to be prepared with the right management tools to take on these tasks and as a result are using VMware vCenter to manage their servers.
The SANsymphony-V Plug-in for VMware vCenter provides a rich set of management capabilities for storage. From the plug-in, vSphere administrators can fulfill the dynamic storage needs of their vSphere/ESX clusters, hosts and virtual machines without having to become a storage expert or having to leave their familiar central console.
DataCore and VMware: The Fully Virtualized Data Center
“VMware customers around the globe running VMware vSphere rely on DataCore’s solutions to deliver the critical ‘third dimension’ of virtualization – storage. DataCore has architected its software to cost-effectively shape the shared storage infrastructure required by virtualization,” states Carlos Carreras, vice president of alliances and business development for DataCore Software. “The SANsymphony-V VMware vCenter Plug-in makes the storage management job significantly easier for VMware administrators. They now have a ‘one-stop’ administrative console to monitor and manage the full set of server and storage resources across their entire virtual data center.”