Symantec enhances Veritas Storage Foundation, Veritas Cluster File System and Veritas Cluster Server. In this announcement Symantec Dec 7 announcement improves the functionality of Veritas Storage Foundation (VSF) by such features as thin provisioning, enhancing failover and recognising SSD, as well as adding performance.
Thin API. Veritas File System provides thin reclamation on third party disk arrays with an impressive list of 6 vendors by the end of 2010. At announcement there are already 3PAR, HDS and IBM in the fold. This means that servers with VSF can exploit thin provisioning across multiple array vendors and it can be initiated from VFS. This is not a trivial development. First of all getting the buy-in from this many vendors is a major acknowledgement. Secondly, putting thin provisioning in the file system puts storage administrators in control of heterogeneous storage environments rather than by array vendor.
Smart Move. Another feature in VSF is Smart Move, which can invoke thin provisioning during migration. Files that are ‘thick’ at source can become ‘thin’ after migration. So any VFS customer can suddenly start reaping the ‘thin’ benefits even without thin provisioned disk arrays.
SSD. With the latest announcement VSF customers can start tiering their environment with SSD in mind. This means putting in a tier-zero on SSD devices which can benefit the applications where performance is crucial.
Failover in VCFS. With VCFS for Oracle and IBM DB2 databases, the steps to failover can be reduced significantly.
VSF for Hyper-V. For Hyper-V customers the ability manage their storage environment under VSF adds enhanced functionality of both physical and virtual environments.
Symantec has made several moves in this announcement to enhance the lives of storage managers. The Thin Reclamation API and Smart Move stands out as major enablers for customers. Symantec has taken the lead and third party vendors queue up to support it efforts. Furthemore Symantec needs to exploit its lead by ensuring that customers are educated in order to exploit the new features.