SnapServer SAN S2000 - Now everyone can have a SAN

Now everyone can have a SAN. Businesses with growing storage needs and limited resources for storage management need a networked storage solution that streamlines data management operations and increases information infrastructure performance without additional training, resources and costs. The SnapServer SAN S2000 scales to 120 TB, effortlessly expands volumes without requiring IT intervention and enables companies to leverage SAN capabilities that have traditionally been considered too complex to manage without specialized expertise. Optimized for virtualized server enviroments, SnapServer SAN S2000 includes support for Microsoft Windows Cluster Server, active-active failover, snapshots, and automatic capacity expansion.

Overview

The SnapServer SAN S2000 is a 2U iSCSI SAN appliance designed specifically for businesses with growing storage needs and limited resources to manage an end-to-end storage strategy. Built on the Overland Storage vision of “effortless data,” the SnapServer S2000 offers an intuitive, simplified management console and Windows-based guided wizards to make installation and maintenance simple for any level of administrator. In addition, the SnapServer has an ideal mix of standard enterprise features including auto provisioning, mirroring for high availability, replication and snapshots for data protection. The SnapServer S2000 simultaneously lowers ongoing operational expenditures and significantly lowers total cost of ownership (TCO) without compromising on the features a business needs to succeed.

Management for the Non-Storage Expert

Building on its vision of “effortless data,” Overland Storage has put the storage expertise into the SnapServer S2000, making it intuitive and easy to manage - virtually eliminating the need for technical experience with iSCSI or SAN systems. With a plug and play architecture combined with a simplified management console and built-in Windows-based wizards, the SnapServer S2000 dramatically saves time on installation, setup, and the vast majority of multi-step storage and data protection tasks.

Breakthrough Automation for SAN Storage Provisioning
The SnapServer SAN S2000 enables companies to leverage Overland’s unique Auto Provisioning capability. Administrators can meet increasing data growth requirements by automatically increasing capacity on the host as needed –without user involvement. Most SAN storage systems require storage volumes to be expanded manually. SnapServer SAN S2000 Auto Provisioning makes capacity expansion “self-managing” by proactively growing volume capacity without any pre-allocation or administrator involvement. Special monitoring software runs in the background to track disk usage and extend volumes that reach pre-defined thresholds. IT administrators no longer have to calculate future storage needs before knowing them.

Overcoming Management Complexity

The SnapServer Manager provides a consistent interface across all products. From a single console, IT administrators can monitor and manage one or more SnapServer SAN or NAS storage systems that are located anywhere on the system – across the globe or down the hall. Utilizing a local windows application or web browser in heterogeneous environments, the console manages storage event logs and immediately displays any faults. Email notifications or text events are automatically sent to the administrators. As an “OS agnostic” appliance, the SnapServer SAN can easily be deployed to provide iSCSI storage to systems running Windows, VMware, Linux, Mac OS X and Novell Netware.

Eliminating Data Protection Pitfalls

Business continuity plans will keep an organization up and running in the event of a major disaster or technology failure. A key to this success is a feature rich solution that provides both mirroring and replication. With the SnapServer SAN, companies don’t have to make the choice between the features they need and the price they can afford. The SnapServer SAN ensures that essential applications remain available at all times by supporting multiple servers reading or writing SAN volumes simultaneously across multiple Ethernet ports. It is fully compatible with the Windows Multi-Path I/O (MPIO) framework, supports Microsoft Cluster Server, complies with Microsoft’s ‘Simple SAN’ program, and other third-party management applications. In addition, the SnapServer SAN mirroring option provides real-time high availability protection for business critical data and is fully integrated with Windows Server Platforms and VMware. With the SnapServer SAN replication option, companies have an easy-to-use yet, powerful solution to a broad range of backup and recovery scenarios. Fully integrated with Microsoft Volume ShadowCopy Services (VSS) for application consistent replication and disaster recovery for Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server, the replication option supports 256 snapshots and scheduled and periodic updates of replicated data. Unlike conventional snapshots, which typically allow a maximum of a few hundred recovery points, SnapServer SAN replicas are designed to handle up to hundreds of thousands of recovery points.

Making Interoperability a Non-Issue

Compatibility is the last thing a storage administrator wants to worry about when implementing SAN storage. That’s why the SnapServer SAN S2000 supports out-of-the-box iSCSI interoperability with Windows, Windows Clusters, Windows VSS, VMware (ESX and vSphere) certification, Linux, Mac OS X, and Novell NetWare. Direct integration with VMware vCenter makes the SnapServer SAN one of the easiest management tools on the market today. The SnapServer SAN S2000 provides for multiple servers reading or writing SAN volumes simultaneously across multiple Ethernet ports. In addition, the SnapServer SAN S2000 is also fully qualified with Windows Multi-Path I/O (MPIO) framework as well as in full compliance with Microsoft’s ‘Simple SAN’ program, and includes a VDS (Virtual Disk Services) provider for integration with the Microsoft SAN Manager and other third-party management applications.

Value Delivered

Overland Storage has always focused on providing high value storage. Unlike other iSCSI SAN solutions, the SnapServer S2000 is built on industry standard high performance hardware. Using the latest in CPU power and RAM, the SnapServer SAN appliance provides higher end performance and features while maintaining a low TCO to make it the best value in the market.

New iSCSI SAN Solution From Overland Storage -SnapServer S2000 Optimized for Virtualized Server Environments

SnapServer SAN S2000 Expands Overland's Market Reach Across the Data Lifecycle

Overland Storage today announced the new Overland SnapServer SAN S2000: a feature rich, resource-efficient iSCSI SAN platform for businesses with growing data. The SnapServer SAN S2000 enables companies with Windows, VMware, Hyper-V, UNIX, Linux, or Mac OS X to take advantage of SAN capabilities that have traditionally been considered too complex to manage without specialized expertise, including active-active mirroring and failover, snapshots, replication and Microsoft Cluster Server support. Featuring automated capacity expansion, the solution enables policy-based storage volume growth to occur in a just-in-time manner without IT intervention, eliminating guesswork and over-provisioning. The SnapServer SAN S2000 scales effortlessly to 120TB and is a cost effective solution for businesses with virtualized server environments or storage consolidation requirements.

Optimized for Use in Virtualized Server Environments
VMware -- The SnapServer SAN S2000 integrates directly into the VMware management application to provide a host of advantages that include:
simplified data store creation wizards for provisioning targets, the ability to provision storage for ESX clusters within VMware utilizing customized SnapServer tools, single interface configuration for SnapServer targets and VMware high availability for ESX data stores using native VMware utilities (DRS, HA, VMotion) with the SnapServer SAN active-active failover option.

Microsoft Hyper-V -- The SnapServer SAN S2000 is certified to support Windows Hyper-V Server for Microsoft virtualization deployments. With customized tools developed for the SnapServer SAN it enables simplified management of Hyper-V for backup utilizing VSS (volume shadow copy services), replication and mirroring. In addition the SnapServer SAN supports direct pass through access for guest virtual machines enabling higher performance and security.

Simple Management and Deployment
"The new SnapServer SAN S2000 has allowed us to provide networked block-based storage to multiple servers and easily manage our data growth from a single interface," said Darren Dong, director of communications and web development at Riverside Community College District, an early beta tester of the SnapServer SAN S2000. "Our Fibre Channel SAN was making it difficult and expensive to map across multiple systems. The SnapServer SAN S2000 allows us to easily manage existing connections and create new ones as needed. We now spend a fraction of the time setting up and monitoring our storage solutions due to the ease of use of the S2000 and SnapServer Manager."

Effortless Data Management and Data Protection, Wherever Data is Located
The SnapServer SAN S2000 is the first iSCSI SAN solution to fully integrate autoprovisioning, an automated capacity expansion feature. With this feature, storage volumes are automatically expanded based on predefined policy -- without requiring intervention. Disk usage is also tracked, giving IT administrators the ability to easily monitor and manage disk capacity consumption across the organization. Companies with standalone or clustered Windows servers running business critical applications, such as Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server, can utilize the SnapServer SAN solution's active-active failover capabilities to ensure high availability and maximum uptime. Advanced replication functionality that supports up to 256 snapshots and failover ensure data is protected and accessible at all times -- regardless of its location -- while accelerating backup efficiency.

"Businesses large and small face similar data storage growth challenges -- but often without the resources or expertise to effectively deploy a SAN. They need a solution that can be easily deployed, is simple to manage and can accommodate growing amounts of data," said Benjamin S. Woo, program vice president of enterprise storage systems at IDC. "Especially as more companies deploy virtualized environments, it becomes even more complex to manage data growth over the long term. With autoprovisioning technology like that in Overland SnapServer SAN S2000, companies can ensure that their storage solution can support business growth without having to pre-determine storage requirements or running the risk of over-provisioning."

Features and Benefits
Automated capacity expansion -- The SnapServer SAN S2000 easily manages storage growth with an autoprovisioning feature that tracks disk usage and automatically extends volumes that reach pre-defined thresholds, without requiring IT intervention.

Simple storage management -- With SnapServer Manager, IT managers can easily monitor and manage all SnapServer SAN and NAS systems remotely or locally via a Windows-based application or via web browser in heterogeneous environments.

Maximized application uptime -- SnapServer SAN S2000 ensures that essential applications are available at all times by supporting active mirroring and failover, and is fully compatible with the Windows Multi-Path I/O (MPIO) framework; also supports Microsoft Cluster Server.

Disaster recovery -- The inclusion of a VSS provider (Volume Shadow Copy Services) supports business continuity in the event of a disaster and increases backup efficiency while ensuring application consistency during backup and replication. It also enables SnapServer SAN S2000 to handle up to hundreds of thousands of replication recovery points.

Twelve drives expandable to 120TB -- The SnapServer SAN S2000 is a 2U base system that can seamlessly be expanded up to 120TB utilizing SnapServer E2000 expansion units.

"The SnapServer line has always been known for delivering rock-solid, reliable products for IT departments that need effortless and cost-effective storage solutions. The SnapServer SAN S2000 not only builds on this reputation, but actually brings a new level of innovation and sophistication to the product line," said Eric Kelly, president and CEO, Overland Storage. "We remain completely focused on listening to and addressing the specific storage needs of businesses by offering storage solutions that can quickly and easily be deployed within existing environments for instant scalability and reliability. Overland strives to deliver storage solutions that are truly effortless for businesses of any size."