Note: Evaluator Group research of Storage Virtualization has been discontinued. The following Product Brief has been archived and is no longer being maintained for updates as of January 2023.

DataCore SANsymphony software provides virtualization of storage devices for access by servers and applications as block or file storage. SANsymphony is an in-the-data path appliance for mid to large storage area networks (SANs) or on virtual machines (VMs) to serve as a virtual SAN offering advanced data services, in addition to shared storage. As a virtualization appliance, SANsymphony runs on an Intel-based 32- or 64-bit server called the Storage Domain Server (SDS). The SDSs will have ownership of particular storage devices and present virtual logical unit numbers (LUNs) to the servers attached to the storage network as part of what is called virtual disk pooling. SANsymphony supports multiple petabytes in a virtual disk pool. The virtual disk pools can be organized into tiered storage classes and different SAN domains.

Multiple storage domain servers may exist, with each having distinct storage devices under their control. Security of access to LUNs is accomplished by explicit source-destination validation and repudiation using the World Wide Name (WWN) of the server. Specific LUNs may be mirrored between SDSs to provide fault tolerant operation. Data flows through the SDS when it is being transferred between the storage devices and the servers. Caching is done in the SDS for performance considerations. Because each SDS owns distinct storage devices (operates asynchronously), caching of the data does not represent an exposure to coherency. In the case of mirrored data, the mirrored data is used in a failover state only with alternate path software in the servers.

The SDSs may be configured in an N+1 arrangement, which provides a high-availability and scaling solution. Unlike other solutions that must be configured in pairs, the DataCore solution operates in a round-robin type of protection system, so that they can scale in increments of a single SDS.

When used as a virtual SAN, SANsymphony is installed in VMs to provide block or file storage, along with advanced features, such as replication and snapshots. Both flash storage internal to the server and externally-attached storage are virtualized and managed by SANsymphony.

DataCore SANsymphony – Product Brief Includes:

• Overview
• Highlights
• Usage and Deployment
• EvaluScale Product Review Methodology
• Evaluator Group Opinion

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