Codestone

A new downloadable software will allow users to benefit from the features of Microsoft Hyper-V without the need for an external SAN.

That is the assertion of the program's manufacturer, DataCore, which noted that no additional hardware is required to take advantage of dynamic load balancing, high availability and live migration facilities featured in the Microsoft offering.

Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing at DataCore Software, said: "DataCore can virtualise the physical storage from internal or direct-attached disks to make it behave like a shared storage pool."

According to the firm, the Virtual SAN Appliance (VSA) allows the sharing of disks between two physical servers and is available in Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V formats.

DataCore is making the application available to consumers for free over a 30-day period.

The organisation recently announced the release of a new update for its SANmelody trial version software, with improvements to migration tools and performance.