LeftHand Intros Appliance

BOULDER, Colo. -- LeftHand Networks(R) today unveiled the LeftHand Networks Virtual SAN Appliance (VSA) for VMware ESX Server.The VSA clusters the internal storage within multiple x86 server hosts running VMware ESX Server to create a full-featured SAN enabling advanced high-availability of data and applications in VMware Infrastructure environments. The powerful, yet cost-effective solution provides a completely fault-tolerant SAN without requiring the purchase of additional hardware, additional costs for power and cooling or additional footprint within the data center.

Customers are realizing tremendous benefits from server virtualization. But with more applications running on a physical server, more applications fail if that server fails. As a result, customers require highly available virtual infrastructure for their applications, which in turn requires shared storage. In many cases, this is not an option due to the cost of physical shared storage. Even so, when shared storage is an option, the storage local to the server is not fully utilized. The VSA provides a cost effective shared storage solution via a redundant SAN with automated failover. The combination of the VSA and VMware Infrastructure provides an automated, high-availability solution for both application servers and storage with failover and failback between physical machines.

The VSA empowers businesses to further realize the benefits of server and desktop consolidation, centralized management and backup, and disaster recovery solutions across the data center as well as remote and branch offices. By implementing the VSA, businesses can reduce data storage costs and management fees while increasing storage utilization and improving data availability within a VMware Infrastructure environment.

"LeftHand Networks' open iSCSI SAN approach, which integrates SAN/iQ with enterprise-class x86 servers, makes the addition of a Virtual SAN Appliance a natural step forward," said John Humphreys, program director for IDC. "The Virtual SAN Appliance concept is truly unique in the Virtual Appliance Marketplace and is indicative of the continued innovation in the server virtualization marketplace."

LeftHand Networks Inc.