Gluster, the leading provider of open source storage solutions, today announced it will be demonstrating VMStor for VMware in booth #106 at VMworld Europe 2010, taking place October 12-14 in Copenhagen. VMStor initially supports VMware and significantly decreases the expense associated with storing virtual machines (VMs) by eliminating the requirement to use a traditional storage area network (SAN) based environment which can be expensive to scale. Gluster VMStor scales to multiple petabytes and can store an unlimited number of VM images. Key capabilities such as VM-level snapshots and backup can be performed with a single mouse click or automated with existing tools and cloud management software.

“The burden on storage is quickly increasing as more of the data center becomes virtualized," said Jack O’Brien, vice president of marketing at Gluster. “VMStor addresses the concerns around storage for virtual machines by eliminating the requirement to use a traditional SAN based environment and offering a solution that can scale quickly and cost-effectively.”

VMStor benefits include:

• Integration with VMware user interface (UI): VMStor integrates seamlessly with the VMware user interface, no new tools or custom interfaces are required.
• VM-level snapshots: Snapshots are performed at the individual VM level for fine grained control. Snapshots are easily automated and can also be controlled through a cloud management software stack. Snapshot operations are performed by Gluster on the storage server, freeing up CPU cycles on VMware ESX machines. Restoring a VM to a prior state is performed by simply copying the desired snapshot to the VM folder and restarting the virtual machine.
• Simple backup: Backup operations can be performed with one mouse click protecting your data in a remote location or in the cloud.
• Familiar file system architecture: VMStor supports standard NFS, requiring no specialized training and making it simple and easy to use.