SANRAD Optimized SAN solution for Microsoft Hyper-V

Implementing Microsoft's Hyper-V is an important step toward improving overall IT efficiency. Virtual machine technology reduces the cost and complexity of managing disparate server hardware and OS platforms, and enables high availability at the server level. Nonetheless, Hyper-V is only one component required for achieving the benefits of a virtual enterprise infrastructure. Another critical component is a complimentary SAN storage solution that extends the benefits of virtualization to a complete end to end solution.

SANRAD's SAN solutions deliver the key requirements of a complimentary storage solution for your Hyper-V virtualization environment:

1) A seamlessly integrated, complimentary feature set that extends Hyper-V features to complete end-to-end solutions.

2) A cost effective solution to compliment the TCO Savings of Hyper-V server virtualization

3) VSS Integrated management that enables ease of use and central management of the end to end solution.

End to End Server and Storage Virtualization

The full benefits of Microsoft Hyper-V's server virtualization can only be realized in combination with a SAN storage solution that works in conjunction with and complements the virtual server layer. Consider the following examples:

• Complete Business Continuity and High Availability Solution –SANRAD's V-STOR seamlessly integrates with Windows 2008 Hyper-V failover clusters to allow automatic recovery from even complete site failovers (servers and storage) with zero hours RTO (recovery time objective) and zero hours RPO (recovery point objective).   By combining the mobility of iSCSI IP based targets with the efficiency of FC replication, SANRAD's unique architecture allows highly efficient synchronous replication and fully automatic failover and failback across campus or metro clusters.  
  
  
• Live Storage Mobility for Virtual Machines - Microsoft's Hyper-V allows IT managers to quickly migrate virtual machines across physical servers for optimal server resource utilization. SANRAD's V-STOR expands Hyper-V by enabling live storage migration between different physical storage systems, while the virtual machine is running and without any service disruption. 
  
   
• Optimized iSCSI connectivity – SANRAD's V-STOR was built from the ground up to optimize performance with iSCSI connectivity. By using iSCSI connectivity Hyper-V users gain all the performance and functionality benefits of block access storage, but without the extra hardware and licensing costs associated with the Fibre Channel protocol.
  
   
• Unlimited Feature Rich Storage Virtualization Licensing – To best service server virtualization environments SANRAD's V-STOR comes bundled with an unlimited license for storage virtualization features, including synchronous and asynchronous mirroring, target and volume creation, snapshots, storage quality of service, high availability and agent-less disaster recovery.   The open licensing scheme allows users to easily expand their server virtualization environment without the need to incur extra storage utilization or data replication licensing costs.
  
   
• Flexible Tiered Storage within a Box – Best practices for many Microsoft applications (such as Exchange Server and SQL Server)require placing logs and data on separate physical storage spindles. This requirement becomes especially important when more than one application may be running on a single server as Hyper-V virtual machines. SANRAD's V-STOR provides the user with full flexibility to tier SATA and SAS drives within the same enclosure to optimally fit customer needs for Hyper-V environments. Furthermore, storage quality of service is provided to prevent interference between the different applications within the virtualized environment.
  
   
• The SANRAD VSS Hardware Provider – The V-STOR comes with a VSS Hardware provider that allows creating consistent snapshots and backups for Microsoft Applications and Hyper-V virtual machines, directly from the Microsoft Management and Backup applications. The Microsoft environment can automatically invoke the V-STOR storage snapshot services through the VSS hardware provider thus enabling tight integration of the V-STOR's storage capabilities within the Microsoft management environment.

The combination of Microsoft's Hyper-V with SANRAD's V-STOR uniquely addresses needs of server virtualization projects. Cost effectiveness is achieved by iSCSI connectivity along with complete flexibility in storage array connectivity and expansion. SANRAD's V-STOR also allows achieving enterprise class high availability, snapshots, and global data replication tightly integrated to the complementary Hyper-V server virtualization offerings.