DataCore Software announced that its two storage virtualization solutions, SANsymphony and SANmelody, have been verified as Citrix Ready for XenServer 4.1 as virtual SAN appliances running on XenServer virtual machines as well as in a standard physical storage server configuration. Rigorous testing verified that both implementations will support XenServer 4.1 virtual machines with virtual storage and advanced storage services critical to demanding virtual server environments, such as fail-safe data protection, high availability mirroring, disaster recovery replication, SANmotion data migration, thin provisioning storage pools and high speed caching for performance acceleration.

The momentum continues to build for DataCore virtual SAN solutions delivered in combination with Citrix XenServer environments. Recent customers include Citrix, Sherron Associates, Digital Control, Integra Pacific Mortgage, Weishardt Group, Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, DocuLegal and Douglas County.

“Now more than ever, storage virtualization is being adopted hand-in-hand with server, desktop and application delivery virtualization,” said George Teixeira, president and CEO DataCore Software. “Our storage virtualization software, which can be implemented as a virtual appliance or running on any standard physical software, creates a ‘storage usability layer,’ giving your storage the consolidation flexibility, simplicity, and utilization benefits of virtualization and the advantage of performing all your important storage services across all your physical storage as a single pool, instead of having to fuss with these devices individually.”

The Citrix Ready program recognizes Citrix partner products that have been validated by Citrix and/or partners to work in Citrix environments, making it simpler for customers to identify solutions that can be used with confidence in Citrix environments.

For more information on DataCore's SMB-affordable line of feature-packed SAN virtualization solutions and a free 30-day test drive, please visit: www.datacore.com/trialsoftware.

Praise from DataCore/XenServer Customers – Making the Virtual Enterprise a Reality, Worldwide
“Without the Citrix XenServer and DataCore combination, we would not have been able to afford to consolidate our servers and install a SAN to protect our storage,” said Gayle Spencer, network administrator, Sherron Associates. “SANmelody just works. The beauty is that I do not even have to think about it. It makes managing our infrastructure far more simple and flexible. Above all, DataCore’s SANmelody made it easy to set up a high-availability SAN to support our move from an aging server farm to new XenServer-based systems.” Sherron Associates, Inc. is a property management firm located in Bellevue, Washington.

In the United Kingdom, Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls chose Citrix XenServer and DataCore's SANmelody solution for server and storage virtualization. Miles Esterson, Managing Director at Semiotic Systems, advised the school on the selection of alternatives. According to Esterson, “Using the combination of Citrix XenServer and DataCore's SANmelody solution we are able to comfortably and affordably install server and storage virtualization. DataCore made it easy to virtualize the storage and set up a 3TB SAN to protect our clients’ data. With their AIM software feature, client systems are now able to automatically be replicated and synchronized to the SAN.”

In France, Weishardt Group, one of Europe's largest manufacturers of gelatin used in the food production, life sciences, and other industries, has deployed SANmelody and Citrix XenServer in tandem. According to System Manager Philippe Ottin, “Our production environment is highly demanding, but we have met all our objectives with DataCore SANmelody and Citrix XenServer. The combination solution gave us a simple to use, cost effective, and agile virtual infrastructure, in which we can deploy and redeploy virtual machines easily and confidently knowing that SANmelody’s high availability virtual disks will follow them wherever they go.”