vMyDocuments Storage Series

vMyDocuments™ Virtualized Personal Storage Overview

In Personal Utility Computing infrastructure, the vMyDocuments appliance series addresses the need to simplify centralized personal storage by using a virtualized layer of abstraction to represent underlying vMyDocuments appliances physical storage resources.

In a Personal Utility Computing infrastructure, without the vMyDocuments virtualized personal storage solution, system operators must manage personal storage by allocating a particular physical storage device and its connection path to a server, either directly or over a network for every individual user account requiring centralized personal storage. Operators must maintain and understand detailed information about each device and connection method. This complexity makes personal storage in a Personal Utility Computing infrastructure less manageable and less flexible and frequently burdens operators with record-keeping and other activities that hamper their ability to allocate and manage personal storage resources.

With the vMyDocuments appliance solution, storage system operators' are able to allocate storage to individual users and to perform other management functions more easily and automatically. Personal storage allocation and provisioning requests can be made in terms of virtualized descriptions of the underlying vMyDocuments physical storage resources, based upon user or application requirements, without regard for the details of the physical vMyDocuments appliance storage. The vMyDocuments personal storage appliance series makes it a cornerstone capability of a Personal Utility Computing infrastructure.

Personal sorage managers are able to describe their requests in logical terms such as performance and capacity requirements, backup and restore schedules, and availability needs, rather than by referring to the detailed physical characteristics of particular devices. With vMyDocuments appliances, storage operators can create a single, easily managed resource pool for Personal Utility Computing.

Dependable

• High reliability Access stored files with more reliability using a dedicated appliance for personal file serving and management.  Built-in hardware redundancies provide a fully redundant architecture.
• Availability Create high availability solutions with native support for multi-nodes failover clustering. With support for multi-path IO (MPIO) from vTelecomputing or vBlade PCs to storage, highly available solutions at the data transport level can also be implemented. The ultimate in high availability solutions are built by joining these features with the Distributed File System (DFS), ensuring availability at the file and physical device level.
• Fast data recovery Restores deleted or corrupted files within minutes using a shadow copy of shared folders, instead of the hours it takes to restore from tape. This function can store up to 64 point-in-time copies per volume and provides the ability for end users to recover previous versions of files.
• Replication Increase data availability and provide disaster recovery by creating multiple copies of data over local area networks (LANs) or wide area networks (WANs) using an integrated Personal Utility Computing solution.

Integrates Seamlessly

• Seamless integration into IVO and IT infrastructure Heterogeneous support so that data can be, in addition to the IVO infrastructure, shared amongst other platforms through the integration of SMB, NFS, AppleTalk, and Netware protocols.
• Integrates with existing IT investments Server management tools (Microsoft Systems Management Server, Tivoli, HP OpenView) and existing anti-virus software are fully compatible with vMyDocuments appliances so you can take advantage of your current investment. vMyDocuments appliances also integrate natively with Active Directory enabling the use of Group Policy Objects, Kerberos Authentication, and Encrypted File System to preserve data security in the IT infrastructure.
• NAS-SAN integration For organizations that have deployed a Storage Area Network (SAN), vMyDocuments personal storage appliances can provide a virtualized gateway to that SAN.  It can provide enhanced support for your SAN including: remote boot, and flexible volume mounting. The IVO virtualized personal storage solution can be integrated into a truly centralized personal storage environment for optimum personal storage utilization.
• iSCSI support  supports the iSCSI protocol, making it easy to integrate in IP data transport environments.

Best Economics

• Low acquisition and installation costs vMyDocuments Series appliances provide some of the lowest costs per gigabyte in the industry. IVO personal storage solutions can be deployed in minutes by using the Web interface to connect to the network, join an Active Directory Domain (or local workgroup), add users, create shares, create user quotas and select file sharing protocols. This adds up to a very quick installation at low cost
• Reduce overall management cost— low total cost of ownership (TCO) Consolidating multiple file servers to a single vMyDocuments storage appliance reduces server management overhead and associated IT staff costs. IVO appliances can also be remotely managed through a Web user interface, simplifying maintenance and providing centralized control of processes like backup, restore, and upgrades.
• Scalable solution to grow with your business IVO personal storage solutions enable IT administrators to easily manage growing amounts of data and to take advantage of high scalability to expand storage capacity as needed. With this scalability, a “pay as you grow” strategy can be implemented to efficiently use the personal storage hardware resources