3PAR hopes to make Linux-based storage easier with its latest product aimed at data centers.
The utility storage company on Tuesday unveiled 3PAR Virtual Copy DBA for Linux. Combined with 3PAR InServ Storage Servers, “users can now deploy Linux-based applications more simply, more economically and more reliably,” the company says.
3PAR says Linux is gaining inroads into data centers because it offers attractive price/performance, but users who are unable to manage their Linux environments properly miss out on the technology’s efficiencies. “3PAR not only allows for rapid Oracle recovery on Linux, but also enables simple, on-demand Linux server provisioning,” the company claims.
Virtual Copy DBA for Linux offers users high availability for Oracle 9i/Linux environments by instantly recovering data after accidental deletions or corruptions. The product intelligently takes a non-disruptive and consistent snapshot of an entire Oracle data set. Snapshots from dozens of points in time can be kept online economically, allowing immediate recovery without going to tape and without extended log playback. Based on 3PAR’s Virtual Copy technology, Virtual Copy DBA snapshots created from Oracle databases require no capacity reservations and consume raw capacity only for changed data, the company says.
3PAR claims its offerings “move any Linux deployment closer to a true utility computing environment, where applications can be quickly scaled up or down based on demand.”
Using the InServ Storage Server, customers can centrally store and test a “golden image” set of Linux operating system and application images. Then, based on the application demands at a given time, users can commission an additional Linux host instantly from a Virtual Copy of the appropriate OS/application base image set. Each server’s snapshot of the base image set can then be customized if needed.
With 3PAR’s integrated Volume Management and Thin Provisioning, users can provision storage volumes once for an application’s lifetime with no planning and minimal configuration effort, the company says, eliminating the need for host-based volume managers and to re-provision storage upon growth. Thin Provisioning also offers dedicate-on-write technology that lets users over-allocate physical storage. Users purchase storage capacity only for written data.
Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, says he knows of a major investment bank managing scores of Linux servers with 3PAR Virtual Copy. “The operational and capital investment required to manage these hosts has been greatly reduced,” Duplessie says.
3PAR Utility Storage is tested and validated with RedHat and SuSE Linux platforms. Pricing starts at $20,000 for a minimum two-controller configuration.