Features - Storage Innovations:

DataCore INTRODUCES PC DISK SERVER SOFTWARE

DataCore Software has introduced SANmelody Lite, $199 software for Windows that turns PCs into disk servers. SANmelody Lite is the simplest and most compatible way to assign, allocate and manage storage space over a local network.

The SANmelody Lite product is ideal for small business offices, workgroups and power-user environments with three or more PCs or laptops that need extra disk capacity. Using iSCSI protocol, the software allows capacity-starved Windows and Linux machines to obtain additional disk space over a LAN just as if more disk drives were installed internally without the performance overhead, compatibility issues or complexity often associated with network shares. SANmelody Lite enables users of even the smallest PC networks to experience the same flexibility, performance and powerful disk management benefits that were previously afforded only to administrators of high-end storage area networks (SANs) in major corporations.

"All you really need is an existing PC, even an older generation machine, an existing network, a few high capacity disks and SANmelody Lite to build a real working SAN," commented Morris Campbell, director of IT for the City of Norfolk, Va. "SANs used to be expensive and complex. SANmelody has broken these barriers -- it's a storage network for the rest of us."

SANmelody Lite is priced at $199 but the technology it is based on is more than six years of DataCore product development and hundreds of enterprise data center SAN deployments.

"SANmelody Lite is clearly designed to introduce the Disk Server concept to as wide an audience as possible," said George Teixeira, president and CEO of DataCore Software. "It would be a mistake to see it as just a teaser for SANmelody. Instead, SANmelody Lite is a fully functional member of the SANmelody family limited by capacity but little else. Able to support more than one terabyte of disk (at current densities) and more than 22,000 IOPs (Disk Input/Output operations per second), SANmelody Lite is directly comparable to dedicated disk systems costing thousands of dollars but at a fraction of the price. And, of course, it is a fully compatible gateway to the advanced software capabilities of the DataCore family of storage networking products."

SANmelody Lite delivers:

• Cost-Effective Network Storage -- the low-cost software delivers the major benefits of SANs without the cost of extra hardware.
• Ease of Use -- only basic Windows skills are necessary to quickly and easily install and use SANmelody.
• Maximum Disk Space Utilization -- optimally provisions disks or a portion of the drives disk space to each computer over the network on an as needed basis.
• Productivity -- achieve more work in a given timeframe. SANmelody efficiently utilizes your PC resources to accelerate performance of diskintense tasks.
• Network Security and Data Confidentiality -- supports IPsec encryption for secure transactions and performs LUN to client verification to enable disk servers to securely assign disk space without exposing confidential data.
• Software Flexibility -- runs on standard Intel and AMD powered PCs, Ethernet and Gig-E networks and any supported Windows disk storage devices (IDE, SCSI, FC, SATA).
• Powerful Network Disk Services -- disk management is enhanced and becomes a network-wide service that coexists with other Windows services such as file and print sharing with minimal impact.

"We're recognized as storage pioneers in the virtualization space and for performance and scalability leadership in the high-end corporate networking space," added George Teixeira. "SANmelody Lite just extends those traits into a broader marketplace."