At Citrix Summit 2008 in Orlando, DataCore Software, the leading provider of storage virtualization software, today announced that resellers worldwide have gained momentum delivering DataCore storage virtualization in combination with Citrix XenServer and XenApp environments. Key resellers that are seeing first-hand the benefits of selling DataCore in conjunction with Citrix include: itX (Australia), Miel (France), Ready Informatica (Italy), ADN (Germany), DNS (UK and Europe), as well as Moose Logic (USA), MTM (USA) and J4 Systems (USA), among many others. 

With XenServer 5.0, Citrix has optimized Citrix XenApp performance on XenServer virtual machines. According to Citrix, this enables XenApp workloads to be virtualized with as little as 7% overhead and as many as 73% more users than XenApp workloads virtualized with competing products. DataCore adds to the combination by enhancing both storage and I/O performance. Moreover, DataCore provides the needed high-availability protection and SAN flexibility. 

According to Steve Parlee, Senior Systems Consultant, Moose Logic, "As a Citrix partner with a keen focus on Virtualization, we are seeing first-hand a wave of server virtualization brought on by the appeal of Citrix XenApp and XenServer. With XenServer so hot right now, it was clear to us that DataCore is the perfect match for XenServer as it unlocks advanced XenServer features such as high availability and XenMotion. Moreover, with the release of XenServer 5.0, integrating shared SAN storage with DataCore’s SANmelody is dramatically easier today than it has been in past XenServer releases.” 

“DataCore is the virtual storage layer that rounds out a complete virtualization strategy,” said Greg Newham, itX General Manager. “With DataCore, users can be confident that they have invested in a shared storage solution that will serve, manage and protect their storage for many years, surviving generations of hardware and providing storage with the same flexibility, ease of movement, cost savings and ease of administration that only a virtualization solution can provide.” DataCore value-added distributor itX offers an unmatched portfolio of virtualization solutions enabling their partners to fulfill customer demand for end-to-end virtualization, spanning desktops, servers and – with DataCore – storage.  

Citrix partners have gained a competitive edge as well as a new crop of customers by implementing DataCore SANmelody™ or SANsymphony™ to virtualize the storage pools for Citrix XenServer, XenApp and XenDesktop configurations. “The DataCore approach, like that of Citrix, is not contingent upon a customer buying expensive hardware,” John Joseph, president, J4 Systems. “DataCore's affordable hardware independent, thin provisioning software solutions enable any business to fully participate in the cost saving benefits of virtualizing and consolidating its storage.” 

Growing Acceptance in the SMB Market

Growing acceptance of virtualization concepts is now prevalent in the SMB market. DNS offers its partners a Demo Center with various types of hardware and virtualization platforms, such as VMware, Citrix and DataCore. Manuela Greinwald, Product Manager Virtualization at DNS, sees "clear growth, particularly in the small and medium-sized sector" and links the options open to the resellers to the quality of their services. “In the storage virtualization market, the partner still has to act as an educator and drive the market in addition to the activities undertaken by DataCore, because not all customers have realized and understood the benefits offered by storage virtualization,” she commented. “There are still some good profit margins out there for our partners! We offer our resellers consulting and many other services to enable them to profit more quickly from this business.” DNS is a major distributor of networking, storage, servers, security and “best in class” virtual infrastructure products.  

DataCore Storage Virtualization Solutions Are Certified to Run on and Serve Storage to XenServer 5 as SAN Storage Virtual Appliances 

SANsymphony and SANmelody products have been certified on Citrix’s newest XenServer 5.0 release as virtual SAN appliances, as well as on both standard servers and blades.  

Through its own rigorous testing, Citrix has certified that both SANsymphony and SANmelody software support XenServer 5 virtual machines as shared storage pools with advanced storage virtualization functions critical to demanding virtual server environments. The manufacturer-independent features include fail-safe data protection, high availability mirroring, remote replication to disaster recovery sites, non-disruptive virtual data migration, thin provisioning and high speed caching for performance acceleration. 

For information on DataCore's SMB-affordable line of feature-packed SAN virtualization solutions or on becoming a DataCore partner, please e-mail: info@datacore.com.