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.

Creating an ethical hacking course from scratch can prove daunting and difficult. If that’s what you’ve been thinking about then you’re in luck: Microsoft decided to help out a bit and just published its guide for setting up a lab for such purposes, using Azure Lab Services. StarWind V2V Converter is also featured in one of the steps.

Learn how to create your own lab for an ethical hacking class with the help of Azure Lab Services. Read article in the link.

Check out our recently recorded webinar where StarWind Solutions Engineer, Orest Lesyuk, explains how to create a robust Disaster Recovery (DR) plan for small and medium-sized business IT infrastructure.

Learn about the critical factors for successful DR implementation, including the advantages of implementing relevant disaster recovery solutions such as Hyper-V Replica, vSphere Replication, and Veeam Backup & Replication.

Watch the webinar recording now.

Updating your various Windows systems can be quite a chore. Microsoft knows that as well. Luckily, it added new features to its endpoint cloud-based management solution, Intune, which allows you to prioritize important security updates.

It’s a great new addition that you can test out right now.

Read the article by Brandon Lee, a virtualization expert, on the new update profiles and expedited quality updates features added to Intune.

Southeast Aerospace, a U.S.-based aviation and aerospace company, had an aging and cost-prohibitive virtualized infrastructure with a hindered scalability. The existing infrastructure didn't provide the performance needed to expand and support numerous critical servers. Performance, redundancy, scalability, and support were all critical components influencing the company's decision on which solution to go with. Using StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), Southeast Aerospace implements a remotely supported and managed IT infrastructure, achieves scalability and redundancy, and saves around $20K on its IT operational expenses (OpEx).

You can read about how StarWind could do the same for your company by following this link.

Despite vendors like Microsoft automating many processes in their solutions, including network configuration, vulnerabilities may still threaten your security.

For example, you still need some fine-tuning when routing traffic via an App Gateway to a private backend application in an Azure VWAN environment.

Learn more about how to build your private endpoint routing patterns to improve your Azure networking security in Part 1 of the article by Didier Van Hoye, a Microsoft MVP.

Area Agency on Aging Region 9, Inc., a U.S.-based non-profit organization, had a standalone Hyper-V host and aging physical servers that compromised its IT infrastructure performance. The organization was looking for a solution that would be applicable for use on its existing servers and wouldn't require additional hardware, as well as would allow increasing the performance and adding high availability (HA) for its IT infrastructure. Using StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), Area Agency on Aging Region 9, Inc. creates an HA storage cluster, accelerates the infrastructure performance, and enables its business operation 24/7.

You can read about how StarWind could do the same for your company by following this link.

Our tech-focused webinar starts in 1 hour and there’s still time to register! On it, Orest Lesyuk (Solutions Engineer, StarWind) will uncover all ins and outs of creating a bulletproof Disaster Recovery plan for modern small- and midsize enterprises (SMEs).

Register now to learn more about the vital factors for proper disaster recovery implementation.

Kelly Aerospace, a U.S.-based aviation manufacturing company, had a small old PC-based server farm with no redundancy or reliable backup solutions. It was built and added on through the years with no real growth plan. So, the company needed to replace its existing servers with a plan for future growth and redundancy. Using StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), Kelly Aerospace builds a hyperconverged IT infrastructure, draws up a plan for future business growth, and reduces its IT operational expenses.

You can read about how StarWind could do the same for your company by following this link.

People like to oversimplify the comparison of any two things, but this is not as apparent when it comes to software. VMware Imager Fling and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) can both automate VM image deployment. However, configuration and requirement differences reveal that they are, in fact, more suitable for different use cases.

Read the article by Vladan Seget, a virtualization expert, on the differences between VMware Imager and MDT to know which solution suits your needs better.

On tomorrow's (1/19) webinar Orest Lesyuk (Solutions Engineer, StarWind) will focus on Disaster Recovery in modern small- and midsize enterprises (SMEs).

Prolonged downtime and data loss can result in high costs and reputational damage. Approaching DR seriously helps reduce damage and recover production services quickly and effectively.

Register now and tune in tomorrow to learn more about the vital factors for proper disaster recovery implementation, including Hyper-V Replica, vSphere Replication, and Veeam B&R.