Chapel Deploys DataCore

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- DataCore Software today announced that Calvary Chapel Ft. Lauderdale, one of the area's largest, multi-site churches, has deployed DataCore's SANmelody software to manage and protect its SAN and to virtualize its data storage environment. Calvary has grown quickly and was facing rapidly expanding storage and server needs.

Calvary Chapel's director of IT and its network operations manager had tried to manage server and data storage growth by buying more computers and constantly adding disks for the servers that were running their most space- demanding applications. Finally, after eighteen months of consideration, the team decided that they could no longer put off installing a DataCore Storage Area Network (SAN). Their conclusion was that DataCore(TM) storage virtualization provided needed flexibility, offered a higher level of data protection, and was the best way to consolidate and manage the consumption of storage. It was no coincidence that this decision came at the same time that the organization was considering server virtualization with VMware.

"We needed a smarter approach that would allow us to control and automate storage across our entire environment, and decided to 'go virtual' with DataCore. Once you do so and look back, the old storage box approach seems so primitive," said Mike Gayle, director of IT, Calvary Chapel Ft.Lauderdale. "I came on board last July, and I was already a VMware customer and knew we needed flexibility to deal with growth. We could no longer continue on the path we were on. It was time consuming and wasteful. So I confirmed our direction. If we were going to invest in a SAN, it also made sense to go with VMware at the same time, rather than just add to or change out our infrastructure, which was old and outdated. For storage as well, just buying more hardware would not have solved our problems."

Gayle and his team attended VMware user group meetings, where they learned the importance of having a highly available SAN, and were introduced to DataCore storage virtualization software. Gayle and others became convinced that their organization was the perfect candidate to take advantage of storage virtualization. "DataCore worked together with Fairway Consulting Group and Calvary Chapel to understand the requirements of Calvary Chapel and all agreed that DataCore has the solutions and the right way for Calvary Chapel to move forward," said Bettye Grant, account executive, DataCore Software. "Calvary made it clear they did not want to be storage experts; they would rather focus their time on applications and user needs. With DataCore, Calvary has a much better grip on its storage infrastructure and its growing storage requirements. Our solutions also gave Calvary Chapel the ability to automate disk capacity to servers and to actually manage the purchase of physical storage to match growth as and when needed, rather than having to guess or 'over' buy."

The DataCore solution, implemented by DataCore Solution's partner, Fairway Consulting Group, also helps Gayle and his team fulfill their roles as good stewards of the church's finances. "The software saves us time and money, but I know from experience that it takes more than cool products to get the job done. I have really been blown away by the DataCore and Fairway combination, especially the work of their service organizations," emphasized Gayle. "The team is phenomenal.""DataCore's products are amazing in terms of flexibility when compared to the general SANs that we had evaluated," said Thomas Williamson, network operations manager, Calvary Chapel Ft. Lauderdale. "Aside from the ease in automating and optimizing disk space, what really caught our interest was not being locked into a hardware vendor. It is software, and you can use any storage or RAID enclosure, no matter what it is - DataCore can manage it."

"The challenge at Calvary Chapel was one that we have seen time and time again," said George Teixeira, president and CEO, DataCore Software. "They needed flexibility to meet future growth. They were constantly running out of space. They were constantly adding new systems. Once they learned about DataCore and storage virtualization, it was very logical to them to virtualize both storage and servers. We frequently hear our customers telling us that embracing total enterprise virtualization makes all the sense in the world."

Calvary Chapel initially deployed SANmelody in 2006. It has since upgraded to SANsymphony in Q1 of 2007, which has advanced reporting and management interfaces and enables deeper visibility into the SAN environment. Today at Calvary Chapel, DataCore is run in tandem with VMware, and together they allocate resources as needed, where needed, over IP and Fibre Channel networks. "Instead of wrestling with hardware, DataCore has made storage a flexible network utility - a service for Calvary Chapel's users and applications," states Gayle.

DataCore Software Corp.