SmartRead™

Pancetera SmartRead technology is a set of algorithms that reduce storage I/O when performing maintenance tasks such as backup, replication, or migration of virtual machines. By leveraging SmartRead, administrators can alleviate unnecessary reads from primary storage and read only the blocks required to perform these maintenance tasks.

SmartRead works by understanding the multiple layers of data in a virtual environment as a group and when reading the virtual machines, only reading the data actually in use at the time of the read, regardless of whether the data block was previous in use or the type of storage provisioning used. The software reading the virtual disk, whether it be a backup agent or a replication tool, still receives a standard virtual disk-formatted data stream, but it has been scrubbed clean of random data, which dramatically increases WAN throughput, compression, or de-duplication activities that occur after reading the VM from Pancetera. SmartRead often increases the efficiency of these operations by 100 to 800 percent.

SmartRead™ Reduces Virtual I/O

When you access your storage through Pancetera SmartView™, Pancetera’s patent-pending SmartRead technology enables this efficient read and normalization of the VM even while the guest OS is running. As a read-only operation, this does not impact the running VM, nor does it cause writes back to the primary storage or otherwise interfere with the primary data path.

SmartRead™ Increases I/O Efficiency

• Reduces virtual storage I/O by 50-80%
• Streamlines random I/O patterns
• Reduces primary storage and network load
• Increases speed 2 to 10x or more for backup, security file scanning, and VM migration across the LAN or WAN
• Increases the efficiency of dedupe targets and WAN accelerators