Finally, StarWind Virtual Storage Appliance is available on Linux allowing you to save costs on Windows licensing. Being hypervisor-agnostic, StarWind VSA easily integrates into any IT infrastructure as a fully pre-configured virtual machine ready for deployment and operation. It simply installs in any existing environment requiring no specialized SAN skills and is managed using StarWind Web console or thick client allowing to control the entire storage infrastructure from a centralized console.
Join our Tap Room Meeting on April 27 11 am PT / 2 pm ET to see all benefits of the StarWind Linux-based VSA.
Register now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/dedicated-live-demo-session

StarWind Virtual SAN Free allows deploying a 2-node cluster providing a highly available storage for your virtual machines to Hyper-V or ESXi hypervisor for free. When deploying multi VSAN Free nodes, the data is synchronized across the network between the nodes. StarWind VSAN Free can be deployed in a hyperconverged model where VSAN Free is installed on hypervisor nodes or in a disaggregated model with separated compute and storage resources. StarWind VSAN Free management capabilities include PowerShell, with StarWind Management console available as a 30-day trial.

Read the full article by Romain Serre, a Senior Consultant at Lyon to learn how to deploy a 2-node StarWind VSAN Free for VMware ESXi 6.5 on Windows Server 2016 Core Edition.

StarWind gets closer to Linux users by providing them with special Linux-based Virtual Storage Appliance version combining the underlying OS and preinstalled StarWind Virtual SAN, allowing to save money on Windows Licensing when it’s unnecessary.
StarWind VSA is compatible with any hypervisor, be it Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, Xen or KVM and can be managed via a Web Management Console while additionally containing a StarWind vCenter plugin allowing to manage the product directly from vCenter Server.

Read the full article by Vladan Seget, IT and Virtualization consultant to learn more about StarWind Virtual SAN on Linux

AlwaysOn Basic Availability Groups (BAG) supported in SQL Server Standard Edition and AlwaysOn Availability Groups (AG) introduced in SQL Server Enterprise Edition were designed to create a replicated environment with improved failover capabilities. However, the two types provide different capabilities while also requiring different licensing costs.

Read the full article by Shashank Singh, Microsoft MVP, and SQL Server Architect to learn more about BAG and AG cost and functionality differences.

Migrating your VMs from one hypervisor to another may be quite a complicated task if there’s no decent virtual machine converter at hand. Fortunately, there are various V2V tools allowing to turn this process into a simple thing. But, when choosing a V2V converter, there are several factors you should take into consideration.

Read the full article to learn how to choose a V2V converter that will become a perfect fit for your needs.

StarWind is currently working on the new product - a flexible and customizable web-based platform which will allow users get the full control over their IT infrastructures from a single HTML5 graphical interface including S2D, Failover Clustering and Hyper-V. More information to be found in a nearby thread: https://mangolassi.it/topic/14114/help-starwind-to-pick-the-name-for-the-upcoming-product

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance utilizes Local Reconstruction Codes, Replication, and Grid Architecture to provide an ultimate fault tolerance rate while delivering sustained high performance. With StarWind HCA, the whole infrastructure remains operational even after multiple disk or node failures. In case a failure occurs, applications are automatically recovered to working cluster disks or nodes, allowing to easily withstand a failure of more than 50% of the cluster nodes.

Watch our video to learn how to get uncompromised resiliency with StarWind HCA
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/get-uncompromised-fault-tolerance-of-it-infrastructure-with-starwind-hyperconverged-appliance

With PowerShell, automatic deployment of Hyper-V VMs in Windows Server 2016 becomes a piece of cake
No doubts, commercial software for automatic VM deployment is great, but it may be too expensive comparing to the goals that need to be achieved. That’s where PowerShell kicks in. With PowerShell commands, the creation and configuration of Hyper-V virtual machines in Windows Server 2016 become a fairly simple thing. But, what is more important, you can create a script which deploys VMs of the same configuration automatically.

Read the full article by Boris Yurchenko, a Support Engineer at StarWind, to learn how to automate your VMs deployment with PowerShell in Windows Server 2016.

Installing an HTTPS certificate is just a tip of the iceberg. This certificate has a huge number of options that usually are hidden deep inside config files. Actually, these tiny details allow distinguishing a site that can be rendered vulnerable via HTTPS downgrade attack and the one that is really secure.

Read the full article by Gary Williams, a virtualization, storage, and Windows systems administrator, to achieve the highest security.

StarWind team will take the floor at Storage Field Day 15 to reveal new awesome backup storage technologies: Virtual Tape Library with Cloud and Object storage and backed by ProActive Support! Our speaking slot is the first in line: March 9, 8-10 am PT, don’t miss it!

For Livestream, go to https://www.facebook.com/TechFieldDay/ or watch on http://techfieldday.com/, Livestream.com - includes the entire event.

The new feature relies on Windows Server (WS) Azure Edition VM, which is a new type of WS Image. Hotpatching is now available in preview in all Azure regions. It allows establishing two types of baselines that will enable hotpatching without rebooting the WS Azure VM, which really invests in the smoothness of the experience.

Read the article by Romain Serre, a Microsoft MVP, on how to use the new Hotpatching feature for Windows Server Edition Azure VMs for patching without reboots.

Traditionally, you would have to configure and manage virtual networks for each ESXi host and virtual machine (VM). VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) simplifies that. VDS offers centralized provisioning, monitoring, and management of virtual networks for selected hosts and VMs, making daily operations more convenient.

Read the new article by Vladan Seget on VMware VDS, its requirements, and the benefits it can bring to your vSphere management routine.

Modern rates of data growth and the need for its storage and processing are totally unaccounted for by large hyperconvergence vendors. Their services and licensing aren’t suited for the average SMB or Edge installation that is now also in need of optimal capacity utilization and virtualization. Alternatively, StarWind’s products work with any industry-standard hypervisor, any commercial hardware, and have no feature paywalls. StarWind brings Enterprise-grade hyperconvergence at an SMB price tag.

Find out what TechHQ has to say about StarWind’s hyperconvergence products characteristics and licensing suitability for modern SME, ROBO and Edge deployments.

Microsoft Azure offers its services on a pay-as-you-go basis. This means that your expenditure depends on the cloud resources used. You’ll want to keep them as close to an application’s needs as possible. Otherwise, you’ll either experience slowdown or unreasonable costs. Thankfully, you can alter your VM disk size and performance on the fly.

Read the article by Romain Serre, a Microsoft MVP, on how to change your Azure VM’s disk size to keep your costs and performance optimized.

Downtime can cause substantial costs, even in millions of dollars. But what’s even worse than downtime is split-brain. Failover strategies exist to help avoid split-brain as well as minimize chances for downtime. The video discusses why failover is important, the specifics of HeartBeat and Node Majority strategies, and how they impact your IT infrastructure’s work.

Watch this StarWind video to learn how different failover strategies function, which one is more suitable for your infrastructure, and how to set up High Availability in your storage infrastructure using either of them.

Virtualization machines (VMs) have various use cases, each defined by the IT resources at hand and respective end-goals. VMware vSphere and Horizon offer three types of cloning when it comes to VM interoperability: full, linked, and instant cloning. Each type has its benefits but also takes its own toll on the system.

Read the new article by Alex Samoylenko, a virtualization pro, on the characteristics of cloning types in VMware vSphere / Horizon and which job each one would fit better.

As VMware vSphere is moving forward, so is StarWind VSAN. Some major upgrades and fixes have been introduced in the latest build of StarWind VSAN for vSphere. For example, there’s a new Linux kernel, synchronous replication is seeing some important changes, and all StarWind License Agreements (SLAs) have been updated, too.

Read the article by Vladan Seget of ESX Virtualization (vladan.fr) on everything you need to know about the new StarWind VSAN for vSphere build 14033.

Azure Migrate has recently seen an update to its features. It can now help you move your ASP.NET and Java applications to an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) container. Usually, such apps would be hosted on Tomcat/IIS. It would be quite a chore to move them to Kubernetes. However, said new capability makes the process much more streamlined.

Read the new guide by Florent Appointare, a Microsoft Engineer, on how to use Azure Migrate to move your applications to AKS without any fuss.

Gartner has launched a new vendor identification program called “Customer First.” The Customer First program is designed to build trust and credibility, by signaling that a technology provider solicits reviews from all customers and recognizes the benefits of honest, unbiased feedback. The Customer First badge on the profile signifies that these technology providers: welcome both positive and negative feedback and utilize customer insights to drive product development, service and support StarWind is proud to receive the Customer First badge.

Check out the criteria for Customer First program eligibility and what real-life users are saying after purchasing and using their solutions from StarWind.

More and more people turn to hyperconverged infrastructures each year because, well, they do have a lot to offer. Many of them are starting with such well-known and admirable solutions as VMware vSAN, enabling you to replace physically shared storage. That is an excellent choice, but there are a few things you need to know before you start.

Read the article by Vladan Seget, an IT and Virtualization consultant, to find out what details about VMware vSAN requirements you should know about: