LeftHand Networks Inc. has announced that the company’s iSCSI SANs have been certified with VMware Inc.’s ESX Server 3, a component of VMware Infrastructure 3.
LeftHand’s iSCSI (Internet SCSI) SANs (storage area networks), powered by SAN/iQ 6.6, and the HP ProLiant DL380 server have been certified with VMware ESX Server 3, LeftHand of Boulder, Colorado said. These products are listed on the Storage / SAN Compatibility Guide for VMware ESX Server 3, the company said. This certification extends LeftHand's commitment to technical industry standards, LeftHand added last week.
The VMware certification broadens LeftHand's compliance to adopt industry-leading infrastructure virtualization software, LeftHand said. Mutual customers will benefit from a virtualized environment supported by both LeftHand and VMware Inc. of Palo Alto, California, the company added.
SANs built using LeftHand's SAN/iQ software are able to distribute and protect data across a cluster of storage servers, LeftHand said. The company's patented architecture increases data availability, allows users to start small and grow the SAN seamlessly, and simplifies management, the company said. The LeftHand SAN is ideal for server consolidation and virtualization projects, Microsoft Application environments, and disaster recovery solutions, LeftHand added.
LeftHand Networks offer customers the choice and flexibility to purchase enterprise-class x86 servers powered by LeftHand's SAN/iQ platform, the company said. The breadth of SAN/iQ powered platforms include the HP ProLiant DL380 server, IBM System x3650, LeftHand NSM 260 and NSM 160, the company added. The first x86 server to be certified with SAN/iQ and VMware Infrastructure 3 is the HP ProLiant DL380 server, LeftHand added.
LeftHand's SAN/iQ complements VMware Infrastructure 3, LeftHand said. The VMware Infrastructure, for example, allows the creation of new virtual machines to meet increasing infrastructure demands in the production data center or to create new environments for software development and testing, LeftHand Networks said. SAN/iQ complements this process by allowing users to clone storage volumes almost instantaneously and with minimal additional use of storage, the company said.
VMware’s VMotion technology, a component of VMware Infrastructure 3, migrates running virtual machines with their operating systems and applications from one physical server to another with zero downtime, which allows users to balance workloads or perform server maintenance without affecting service levels, LeftHand Networks said. SAN/iQ offers similar storage functionality which allows volumes to be moved from one cluster to another with zero downtime and without modifying the VMware environment, the company said.
VMware High Availability (HA), another component of VMware Infrastructure 3, provides uniform business continuity for all applications by automatically re-starting virtual machines affected by server failure, LeftHand Networks said. SAN/iQ architecture allows organizations to distribute their storage networks so that access to the virtual machines' storage volumes can continue uninterrupted even through the loss of an entire data center, the company added.
The virtualized iSCSI SAN from LeftHand is the power behind Millward Brown’s VMware Infrastructure 3 environment, the research firm said. The combination of LeftHand's SAN/iQ and VMware Infrastructure unlock features that were earlier available only to fibre channel SAN owners, at a fraction of the cost of fibre channel, the company added.
LeftHand has been a member of VMware's Technology Alliance Partner Program since late 2004, the company said. LeftHand's clustered open iSCSI SAN technology combined with VMware Infrastructure 3 offers customers virtualized, highly available and scalable server and storage environments, while allowing customers to reduce overall IT costs and implement server consolidation strategies, LeftHand added.
Quoting Computer Technology Review, here.