The solution is made up of two servers loaded with several hard drives with several third parties. it is possible to use different types of hard drives (SATA, SAS, SSD, NVME) and even reuse storage bays on iSCSI or FCP protocols. A simple network with protection thanks to multipathing on the front end but also the back end and mirror links. Its console allows you to administer the entire solution from 1 administrator station but also from the servers themselves if you partition the storage infrastructure for security reasons.

This solution allows us to have greater data continuity as the data is synchronized between two servers.

In some installations, this solution allows us to have the IT infrastructure replicated between two different sites within our company, and by implementing a third server, it also allows us to have a disaster recovery site external to the company, thus allowing us to have maximum data continuity.

From 2023, we have significantly improved our storage infrastructure with the new DataCore system, which is equipped exclusively with NVMe SSDs. The impact of this technology upgrade was immediate. 

Before implementing NVMe SSDs, the response times of our virtual machines (VMs) were 30-40 milliseconds. After switching to the new DataCore system with NVMe SSDs, we saw a dramatic improvement: Response times dropped to an impressive one to four milliseconds. This significant performance improvement has allowed us to increase the density of our VMs. We can now run even more VMs on the same hosts without sacrificing performance.

Another important aspect of the new DataCore system is its synchronous mirroring feature. This feature provides us with improved data security as it creates an exact copy of our data on a secondary system in real-time. This is particularly valuable for maintaining business continuity and for disaster recovery scenarios. In addition, synchronous mirroring simplifies maintenance and patching operations considerably. As an exact copy of our

Before using San Symphony, I had to work late to improve my IT infrastructure. Now, I can do it at any time of day.

We also won on availability. When one of the servers crashes, there is no effect on our production. It rarely happens; however, we would have been out of production with our previous infrastructure.

We do things differently now. We use our backup solution to backup storage rather than to backup machines, and I find it has less impact on the performance of our virtual infrastructure.

Before using San Symphony, I had to work late to improve my IT infrastructure. Now, I can do it at any time of day. 

We also won on availability. When one of the servers crashes, there is no effect on our production. It rarely happens, but we would have been out of production with our previous infrastructure.

We do things differently now. We use our backup solution to backup storage rather than to backup machines, and I find it has less impact on the performance of our virtual infrastructure.

DataCore SANsymphony ensures high business continuity. For example, through the possible reactivation of vDisks at another location and the secure restoration of a previous “healthy” data state. 

The synchronous mirroring of the vDisks ensures very high data availability for employees. Company users do not notice service or maintenance; hardware replacement and updates can be carried out virtually unnoticed. 

In addition, synchronous mirroring simplifies maintenance and patching operations considerably.

Our filesystem has been a reliable and robust system that has been serving us well for many years. We have been using it without any issues, and it has been working smoothly and efficiently. 

The system has only experienced short downtimes for updates, which can be done part by part. This means that the company users don’t even notice any service downtimes. 

Our filesystem is a testament to our commitment to providing the best possible service to our employees, and we are proud of its performance over the years.

When you have to meet data latency and accessibility requirements you will need to look at this software offering. Our developers and DBAs require uptime and redundancy. This has improved our operational offering to our customers. The end-user finds it fast and reliable. The software works well no matter what storage vendor we put on the back end. We can check storage from startup ABD or price from vendor XYZ. This improves our flexibility and cost savings as we rely on the software and not on a product or manufacturer that locks us in.

DataCore SANsymphony is our main storage system. We were using it in combination with VMware vSphere. Each data store is mirrored; many critical data stores have a 3^rd mirror in their Disaster Recovery site. On the 3^rd mirror copy, we are using continuous protection. The data stores are set to get a maximum of 14 days. Some special data stores have additional snapshots to keep the full backups. We tried to use vFilo. However, this solution was not as good as the NetApp ONTAP software-defined version. I do not know what we will use in the future when choosing the next storage solution. Right now, we are split between NetApp and DataCore.

DataCore SanSymphony helps us to have a real performant and secure storage system. We can use the storage technology of our choice because SanSymphony can manage any storage that Windows accept.

The solution helps us to protect the data with the high availability function, which synchronizes in real-time the block between the servers. The continuous data protection function can log all the changes on the storage to allow us to go back in time within the last 72 hours.

We thought about replacing our two VMware servers and the two DataCore servers with the hyper-converged DataCore solution. 

Previously, we had some Windows and Linux servers with direct-attached storage. Our server's farm increases faster than our server room. So, we thought about virtualizing our applications. We chose to use VMware ESXi and DataCore SANsymphony to create our new infrastructure and then began to deploy our infrastructure on one server room. Then in 2018, we chose to dispatch them for more security in two server rooms.

With SANsymphony, we were able to set up fully redundant storage across two locations. We use SANsymphony as the main storage for our cloud and dedicated customer environments. 

We were impressed by the integration into virtualization and the backup system. SANsymphony integrates seamlessly into our VMware platforms. Auto-tiering enables us to keep the storage content on the optimal storage tier easily. 

Synchronous mirroring ensures very high availability for us and our customers. In the event of maintenance or failure, an automatic failover takes place. The automatic failback is the cherry on top of the cake.

Integration with Veeam Backup & Replication has enabled us to improve our backup infrastructure significantly. 

The use of storage snapshots and backup via Fibre Channel reduces the load on the productive infrastructure.

The main feedback from my customers concerns the performance of the DataCore SANsymphony - thanks to the embedded Auto-tiering technology which avoids users purchasing an expensive physical storage when the majority of their data is no longer active beyond a few weeks and do not need to be stored.

They have a quality support team, which offers assistance in French when necessary (particularly for Public Service customers who do not speak English fluently). They respond very quickly to engage with any serious problems encountered.

DataCore SANsymphony brings the ability to work on almost every hardware platform and to build a storage node with high precision (disks, interfaces, protocols). We can choose what hardware we want to put in and it brings a high-performance throughput from it. The ability to build exactly what you need is a major advantage of SANsymphony over other solutions.

Hardware maintenance is easy since it is a simple server. There's no need for a storage hardware expert. On top of that, the Software-Defined Storage is easy to manage.

This solution allows us to have a business continuity plan for storage and as a first level of backup.

This solution allows us to have our IT production in two separate and autonomous rooms in active/active mode. The data is present in both rooms. In the event of scheduled shutdowns (works, updates, etc.) or incidents, the changeover is done manually or automatically.

The Continuous Data Protection feature and the logging of data changes allows a minimal level of data loss on incidents, human errors, or cyberattacks. This functionality makes it possible to restore the data to the moment before loss.

SANSymphony allows us to separate the storage software from the hardware. That way, we can replace or add any backend in the cluster without downtime.

This ease of adding or removing storage allows us to control costs.

All maintening operations can be done without downtime as well. The team is happy due to the fact that they can do the operational tasks during day without impact on the production.

It helps us control storage costs.

This solution is very flexible. We can have 2 physical DataCore nodes with backend storage virtualized or we can have internal disks on the main site and hyper-converged 2 nodes on Robo sites. All this is managed from the same console and with the same functionnalities.

DataCore has been doing software-defined storage since back before SDS was even a buzzword. It has provided a great deal of flexibility, performance, and efficiency for our Enterprise SAN. We are not tied to any one hardware vendor and over the nineteen years that we've had DataCore, we have gone through various models of IBM servers to Dell servers as well as various storage arrays from IBM, Dot Hill, XIO, Kaminario, and Dell (all with some of the same data from year one).

It has helped my customers because it's an SDS solution, and we can use all components that you put in a server. You have many options that meet customer needs, and you can find the best way in relation to performance and price. 

DataCore gave us speed, redundancy, reliability, and works great with our backup system.

Among other things, we used SSY to bring a Splunk installation onto the existing central DataCore storage. Continuous data transfer rates of up to 2.6 GByte/s (16GB Fibre Channel, dual fabric synchronously mirrored systems over 20km) were also achieved.

The project was also much cheaper and easier to implement than any comparable solution.

The services already running (databases, virtualization) are not affected and run with the same performance as before the expansion.

Veeam is now configured to use storage snapshots. This reduces VMware snapshots to a minimum. The backup runs via Fibre Channel and relieves the LAN.

DataCore has helped provide flexible, highly available, high-performance storage that otherwise would have been outside our price range.

The server nodes caching algorithms will speed up your SAN storage performance, even if you are already using a high-class FC attached enterprise storage system.

The DataCore is open in order to attach a lot of different storage subcomponents.

The SDS is not dependent on a special hardware vendor. You will be able to mirror between different vendor systems if you like/need to. For example, to mirror data between one node with locally attached storage and the opposite node with an FC attached NetApp system. The data migration between old and new HW is quite simple.

The DataCore system has been rock solid since we have been using it - from 2007 on.

• SANsymphony gives us the possibility to get storage redundancy with a very good ROI.
• It also helps us to get a more balanced performance of our storage systems.

We are now able to run a hot standby solution for our virtual systems with separated server rooms (in case of fire), and so we can minimize downtimes of our IT infrastructure.

Our data centers are divided into three sections. It is possible that the provision of data is guaranteed in the event of an error. We use a three-way-mirror from DataCore SANSymphony-V.

This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage. So, we can throw in our own enterprise-class hardware (including SSDs) and not pay any extra based on the type of storage we use. This is the same model used with server virtualization.

This has allowed us to keep the hardware separate from software. It is true "storage virtualization" at its finest. It has all the features of any high-end SAN such as fiber channel, iSCSI, thin provisioning, storage tiering, snapshots, continuous data protection/recovery, synchronous and asynchronous mirroring, performance reporting/graphing, and true HA design.

DataCore recently added a hardware appliance for customers who what a turnkey, easy to install solution.  So if engineering the underlying-storage is not your cup of tea, their appliance, which is built on top of Dell server/storage hardware, is the way to go.

I'd have to say that the biggest improvement gained by using SANsymphony has to be the performance of the product. When we migrated from our physical SQL server hardware storage to SANsymphony's software-defined storage, with its clever caching mechanism, we saw a huge increase in performance. This decreases the amount of time it takes to make a sale and keeps both our staff and customers happy.

In the time of using DataCore SANsympohny Hyper-converged-Infrastructure, we had no storage-related downtime in our environment. The server and storage functionality works, and maintenance is easier to handle depending on the redundancy.

DataCore is an administrator's and users' friend.

DataCore SANsymphony has improved our organization in terms of performance, data security and maintenance plan. We can stop one of our machine rooms without interruption of service to the user.

It is easy to manage the storage and simple to enlarge our virtualisation environment. 
DataCore SANsymphony has improved performance, stability and data security of our datacenter.

It has improved performance, security, RTO, RPO, and timeout. It has improved my organization with the prevention of a breakdown.

• DataCore SANsymphony allows us to have a reliable, fast and easy administration infrastructure.
• We have a reliable and secure infrastructure thanks to SANsymphony, and all at less cost.

DataCore SANsymphony has improved our organization by using much less hardware for storage. The power consumption and heat have decreased, so we were able to shut down one air conditioner. Also, it is a faster storage system.

It is a well-proven, automated management tool in all dynamic provisioning, auto-tiering, great performance, parallel I/O, cache speed mechanism, etc. 

Since DataCore has been installed, the performance of our server has been improved. During the maintenance periods, on any part of the storage or VMware migration, we have had no downtime.

Recently we decided to deploy DataCore™ Hyperconverged Virtual SAN in our manufactury.

We don't have to check if sync is good or not between each server, DataCore does it for us and replicates on another site.

Storage access is improved. Just after migration, applications respond faster.

We replaced a SAN (Dell EMC) product with two servers and the SANsymphony software. The solution is more scalable and very easy to administrate.

• Multi-site redundancy, who wouldn't want that?
• Cluster maintenance is super easy: just add a node to the second site and the software takes care of the data.

• Creates and build fast flash-only storage systems
• Creates storages with TB in small units
• Saves many kW of power and cooling. 

It has really helped with I/O and being able to manage our storage more simply.

I have a system that uses approximately 6TB as a file server and I use the thin provisioning to optimize the storage.

Excellent performance and reliability, and very low cost using home hardware.