DataCore Software, the industry's premier provider of storage virtualization software, announced today that in the spirit of the holiday season it will offer free license keys of its SANsymphony(TM) -V storage hypervisor to Microsoft Certified and System Center professionals. The not-for-resale (NFR) license keys -- may be leveraged for non-production uses such as course development, proof-of-concepts, training, lab testing and demonstration purposes -- are intended to support virtualization consultants, instructors and architects involved in managing and optimizing storage within private clouds, virtual server and VDI deployments. DataCore is making it easy for these certified professionals to benefit directly and learn for themselves the power of this innovative technology -- the storage hypervisor -- and its ability to redefine storage management and efficiency.

"In 2012, organizations will need to pay closer attention to their storage environments and the impact they will have on their IT and virtualization goals," said Linda Haury, vice president worldwide marketing at DataCore Software. "DataCore's storage virtualization solutions have always been designed to support Microsoft platforms and the professionals who use them. By providing SANsymphony-V to these experts for home and office labs, they will be able to realize the benefits of the storage hypervisor and inform others of the need to not only create a dynamic storage infrastructure, but how to better manage it."

The SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor is a portable, centrally-managed software suite capable of enhancing the combined value of multiple disk storage systems, including the many purpose-built storage appliances and solid state disks (SSD) type devices arriving to the market daily. The storage hypervisor supplements the individual capabilities of specialized equipment with a broad range of device-independent, integrated services. The SANsymphony-V software executes on physical and virtual servers or can co-reside with server hypervisors. Other major features include, but are not limited to, "Quick serve" storage provisioning, automated tiering across SSDs, disk devices and different cloud storage providers and continuous data protection (CDP).

The free NFR license keys of SANsymphony-V are available during the 2011 holiday season and this offer will expire on January 31, 2012. The licenses may be used for non-production purposes only and the software can be installed on both physical servers and Hyper-V virtual machines as a virtual storage appliance.

To receive a free license key, please email: NFRsoftware@datacore.com or sign up at: http://pages.datacore.com/nfr-for-experts.html . Proof of certification as a Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA), Microsoft Certified Master (MCM), Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP), Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD) or Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) is required.