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Products | SANmelody | Features
 Download SANmelody Datasheet [208 Kb]
Below you'll find a brief description of SANmelody™ Software Features and Options.
For additional information, please download the White Paper entitled, "SANmelody Software Converts PCs into Powerful Network Disk Servers"
Base Capabilities
The base software package enables you to transform a general purpose PC server into a Powered by DataCore™ disk server with the following essential features:
- iSCSI disk emulation. Serves well-behaved virtual disks to popular operating systems using standard iSCSI protocol over Ethernet. Supports allocation requests from Windows Virtual Disk Services (VDS).
- Support for numerous types of disk drives. Supports any disk drives qualified for Windows (i.e. SCSI, EIDE, Fibre Channel, SATA, etc.) and transparently bridges between the drive interface and the iSCSI or optional Fibre Channel host connection.
Please refer to FAQ 729 on DataCore's SANmelody Technical Support Site for supported disk drives.
- I/O read and write caching. Uses the server's local memory (RAM) as a cache to improve application response time.
- Secure LUN allocation (access controls). Prevents unauthorized host access to virtual disks not explicitly assigned to them.
- Supports Windows Server 2003 Storage Services. Virtual Disk Services (VDS), Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS), and Multipath I/O (MPIO). Administrators benefit from a standard methodology for invoking disk services, setting up snapshots and supporting muti-path redundancy across a spectrum of workloads and storage devices.
- Virtual LUNs. Divides or aggregates physical disks to meet various capacity requirements.
- Intuitive administrative GUI. Uses Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Snap-ins for simple point and click configuration and management.
- Performance displays. Leverages Windows' built-in Perfmon to trace SANmelody-specific performance counters.
- Event logging. Assists in troubleshooting via Windows' built-in Event Viewer and event log.
- SANmotion. Data migration capability enabling users to move, access and serve and pass through "Live Data" pre-formatted Windows disks across the SAN. More info. To see animated slide show, click here.
Optional Modules
More sophisticated storage control requirements are addressed by licensing one or more of the following advanced options:
- Fibre Channel Disk Emulation Option: Serves well-behaved virtual disks to popular operating systems using Fibre Channel connections. Supports allocation requests from Windows Virtual Disk Services (VDS).
- Auto Failover (HA) Option: Synchronously mirrors writes between a pair of disk servers using Fibre Channel connections. Both disk servers may actively process I/Os with one handling primary paths for some of the volumes and secondary paths for others. In the event of a failure, the companion server takes over with the mirrored volumes. Hosts must be adequately configured with qualified multi-pathing drivers to take advantage of this automatic failover feature. Each disk server must be separately licensed with the HA option.
High Availability Alternate Path software 뺻ataCore provides several alternate path software solutions for application servers that ensure continued I/O access in the case of a physical path failure.
- Windows Alternate Path (AP) Driver � Provides Fibre Channel path failover for Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Pro, Windows 2003 Server and Enterprise Server and Windows XP Pro. See the SANmelody Support Matrix for additional details.
- Solaris Alternate Path (AP) Driver - Provides Fibre Channel path failover for the SUN Solaris operating system. See the SANmelody Support Matrix for additional details and specific O.S. Revisions supported.
- DataCore MPIO Driver � Based on the industry standard Windows MPIO specification this driver provides Fibre Channel and iSCSI path failover for Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Pro, Windows 2003 Server and Enterprise Server and Windows XP Pro. See the SANmelody Support Matrix for additional details.
- AIX Alternate Path (AP) Driver � Provides Fibre Channel path failover for the IBM AIX operating system. See the SANmelody Support Matrix for additional details and specific O.S. Revisions supported.
- In addition, there are several other 3rd-party Multipath driver solutions that DataCore has qualified for use on various operating system environments. See the SANmelody Support Matrix for additional details and specific O.S. Revisions supported.
- Snapshot Option: Point-in-time snapshots are generated using copy-on-write technology for selected virtual volumes. Snapshots may also be triggered from the Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) in Windows Server 2003 hosts attached to the disk server.
- Auto Provisioning Option: Just-in-time auto provisioning takes the guesswork out of LUN allocation. The Network Managed Volumes (NMV) option presents large virtual volumes to applications but only allocates disk blocks dynamically as the application consumes it. See animated slides for SANmelody Auto Provisioning.
- Asynchronous IP Replication Option: The Asynchronous IP Mirroring (AIM) option replicates selected volumes between a pair of disk servers using native IP connections over long distances. Each disk server in the AIM connection must be separately licensed with the SANmelody AIM option. Click here for notes.
Get more technical detail on how Asynchronous IP Mirroring (AIM) works.
Addtional Application Server Software
DataCore provides other product capabilities in the form of standalone software offerings for use on Windows Application servers.
- Asynchronous IP Mirrors (AIM) Client � AIM client runs and operates as a standalone application on a Windows application server independent of SANmelody. AIM Client operates within the confines of a single Windows application server and can act as a AIM source for locally attached volumes only. AIM client provides the capability to asynchronously mirror select volume write operations (based on configuration) to a remote site running SANmelody with the AIM option (the AIM destination). Click here for notes.
- DataCore VSS (Snapshot for SQL Server, Exchange 2003, and Windows 2003 file systems) � Simplified disk뻯o-disk backup and rapid disaster recovery for SQL Server database volumes, Exchange 2003 information stores and Windows 2003 file systems utilizing Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS). DataCore뭩 VSS provides the ability to create a point-in-time copy for all VSS aware applications including SQL Server, Exchange 2003 and Windows 2003 file systems to ensure the applications are in a consistent state to enable rapid recovery from a point-in-time and to simplify backup processes. The volumes are delivered to the application servers from SANmelody over iSCSI. DataCore snapshot commands can be issued either locally or remotely (via synchronous disk-to-disk mirrors or AIM � Asynchronous IP Mirroring) to enable back-up copies or an offline application to utilize the data volumes. See VSS animation slides for functional operation.
- DataCore SQLSnap (for SQL 2000 Database only) � This Windows 2000 application support package provides the ability to quiesce the SQL 2000 Database (DB) and then flush cache so that the DB volumes and log files are in a consistent state. If the DB volumes involved are delivered to the application server from SANmelody then a Snapshot command can be issued, while the DB is in a quiesced state, which allows the consistent DB set to be backed up or used by an offline application. In addition, while the DB is in a quiesced state, AIM marker commands can be issued to the AIM source system that will in turn send the marker to a remote SANmelody system (AIM destination) to take a remote Snapshot the DB volumes. See SQLsnap animation slides for functional operation.
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