This series of posts is intended to show you the full process of configuring Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Core version – from its installation and the deployment of Hyper-V role to the Failover Cluster setup. In this part, you will find a step-by-step guide on installing and configuring Windows Server Core.
Read the full article by Alex Khorolets, a technical support engineer at StarWind, to learn how to properly install Windows Server 2016 Core.
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016 is a free, GUI-less version of Microsoft Windows Server, designed specifically for virtual machines. Since all Windows servers require SMB 1/2/3 to work, we can create SMB file share on Hyper-V 2016 as well. This part will guide you through the process of creating an SMB share on an absolutely free Microsoft Hyper-V 2016.
Read the full article by Ivan Ischenko, a technical support engineer at StarWind, to learn how to create a free SMB 3.0 file server on Microsoft Hyper-V 2016: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/free-smb3-file-server-on-hyper-v-2016
Ceph is a unified, distributed storage system delivering the ability to scale up to exabyte level while maintaining high reliability. This makes Ceph attractive for workloads’ distribution, storing and replication of data. Thus, StarWind has utilized Ceph in its new Enterprise Storage Appliance to provide it with infinite scalability.
Learn how your storage can be scaled simply and run smoothly with Ceph.
Watch now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/discovering-ceph-easily-scalable-and-highly-reliable-storage-platform?utm_source=mangolassi&utm_medium=mangolassi&utm_campaign=tap_room_ceph_17_08
Veeam Powered Network (VeeamPN) is a free Veeam solution that supplements the Veeam functionality of restore to Microsoft Azure and allows you creating a VPN connection between remote sites over the public network.
Veeam PN network infrastructure may have any configuration. For example, it may be an environment with a Veeam PN Server virtual machine in Azure, Veeam PN Gateway client’s software in three geographically separated datacenters, or even external private network users connecting via OpenVPN Client.
Read the full article by Alex Samoylenko, a virtualization technology professional, to learn how Veeam PN allows you connecting various physical networks into one private company network and prepare for disaster recovery in Azure.
iSER (the iSCSI Extensions for RDMA) delivers a number of benefits that are extremely useful for building a high-performing virtualized environment. Being supported in StarWind Virtual SAN, iSER technology makes the system faster in terms of IOPS, unloads the system’s CPU utilization, and decreases the latency between the servers.
Read the full article by Alex Khorolets, a technical support engineer at StarWind, to learn more about StarWind iSER advantages.
There are many various solutions you can use to get a decent monitoring functionality. The problem is that you still have to constantly sit in front of your screen and check the environment health to make sure that everything runs smoothly. That is where StarWind ProActive Support kicks in.
The service delivers a true peace of mind by completely eliminating customer’s effort involved in troubleshooting issues. With StarWind ProActive Support, administrators can leave the time- and effort-demanding part of their work for AI and focus on other tasks.
Learn how to escape the constant IT-environment monitoring with StarWind ProActive Support!
Watch now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-proactive-support-is-a-remedy-to-it-infrastructure-support-pain
During its lifetime, any system reaches a point when it needs to be upgraded, either in terms of hardware or software. So, if you want to take your Windows Failover Cluster functionality to a next level, Cluster Rolling Upgrade will come in handy. The procedure allows upgrading Windows Failover Cluster nodes from Windows Server 2012 R2 to Windows Server 2016 with no production interruption.
Read the full article by Boris Yurchenko, a Support Engineer at StarWind, to learn how to upgrade your Windows Failover Cluster with no downtime.
Create a continuous namespace combining flash (SSD, NVMe etc) and spinning disk, instead of manually copying your data from disk to flash and back. Get close to all-flash-array I/O performance with your workload and without breaking the bank. Leave tiering and data management to smart algorithms and AI and focus on something else.
Read the full article by Dmytro Khomenko, a Pre-Sales Engineer at StarWind, to learn more about the benefits of storage tiering.
For generations, NFS has been viewed either as a corporate file server (Surprise! Credit goes to NetApp for sure!) or just as an easy way to land users’ files from any Windows, MacOS X or UNIX / Linux box right on a remote server using Ethernet connectivity. However, starting with NFS v3 the protocol itself can do much more than that!
Thanks to its more than recent performance, elegant access management and individual file locking abilities, now we can use NFS as a shared storage for whatever hypervisor we want (Well, except Microsoft Hyper-V of course, but that’s another story to tell…), be it Linux-based KVM or proprietary ESXi at all. Since 2003 or so Microsoft was kind enough to include NFS server into standard Windows Server distribution free of charge.
While it’s definitely not the best NFS server implementation on Earth, sometimes it comes handy when you already have Windows Server up & running and don’t want (or don’t have time…) to provide any new FreeBSD or Linux installation “from scratch”: within your existing Windows enabling NFS server is as easy as just ticking the checkbox!
Read the full article written by Ivan Ischenko a Technical Support Engineer here at StarWind to learn how to run VMware vSphere & ESXi VMs right from the Windows provided NFS share.
Sometimes, small changes in your IT environment may turn out to be fruitful for your production. For instance, a proper network protocol allows you to squeeze extra CPU for your production VMware VMs so that you can run more of them. Under a “proper protocol” we mean here iSER, the protocol that allows offloading I/O to RDMA hardware and may be viewed as an alternative to iSCSI.
Learn from this video how to streamline CPU utilization with iSER.
Not that long time ago, Microsoft launched DevOps Projects, a new service intended for deployment and monitoring your applications in Azure. Thanks to this service, implementing DevOps with Azure becomes a matter of 5 minutes, even if you lack VSTS and TFS skills.
Read the full article by Nicolas Prigent, a Microsoft MVP in Cloud and Datacenter Management, to learn more how new Azure service can come in handy.
Almost every application run in our datacenters can be orchestrated via some sort of web-based interface. It allows you to access things wherever you are from whatever browser. Everything looks wonderful, but there’s one thing – self-signed certificates. Sometimes, they become really annoying due to making your browser whine about accepting numerous self-signed certs. Fortunately, there’s Microsoft Certificate Server, the role within Active Directory environment that stops all that nightmare.
Read the full article by Mike Preston, Toronto VMUG Co-Leader and vExpert, to find out how to avoid all those annoying self-signed certificates with Microsoft Certificate Server.
Squeeze all the performance out of your Hyper-V with SMB Direct SMB Direct is too cool to be left on the table. However, that’s not a “plug-and-play” thing – before bringing that thing to your environment, you need to understand the technology itself and your environment.
Q: How many IOPS can your Windows Server do?
A: ALL OF THEM!
Find out more about SMB Direct and how the technology improvement over SMB 3.0 comes in handy in your virtualization or SQL Server environment in the full article by Didier Van Hoye, an experienced subject matter expert advisor and infrastructure architect.
Evolving along with companies’ needs, Microsoft is about to release new Windows Server 2019. Feeling comfortable with the good old 2016 version? Get ready for something even better!
Learn more about the features Windows Server 2019 will bring to your IT environment in the full article by Karim Buzdar, a Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate for Server Infrastructure.
Now, thanks to Veeam Agents, you can perform remotely orchestration- and data-protection-related tasks on all computers within IT environment at once right from the Veeam Backup & Replication console. Looks cool, right? Well, with Protection Groups, things become even better: you can automate that stuff!
Find out more about Veeam Backup & Replication Protection Groups and how to use them in the full article by Paolo Valsecchi, Veeam Vanguard System Engineer and VMware vExpert.
Microsoft Flow is a handy tool to create automated workflows between your favorite apps and services. It allows you to collect data, sync files, and automate all that boring jobs related to, let’s say, sending emails once a tweet with a buzzword is posted.
Find out how to set Microsoft Flow in the full article by Florent Appointaire, a Microsoft Engineer specialized in Cloud Technologies.
Notifications can be incredibly useful for displaying vital information on your machine or on a remote user workstation, for example. You can create and display your desired notifications using PowerShell and a custom GitHub module for it — BurntToast. To enjoy this technique though, you’d have to use Windows 10 or Windows Server 2019.
Read the article by Nicolas Prigent, a three-time Microsoft MVP, on how to create and display notifications on Windows 10 and WS2019 using a custom GitHub PowerShell Module.
Today, FeaturedCustomers released their software customer success report on hyper-converged solutions. There, they highlighted the top-rated vendors designing hyper-converged solutions. StarWind is referred as a Rising Star, a vendor that has the disruptive technology and understands trends in the market. Thank you for your support, we keep on going!
Have a look: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2018/03/prweb15309124.htm
@Reid-Cooper Yes, here you go: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san-vsa
An early access before the release 
As the hyperconverged market is booming, CRN highlights on the coolest vendors from Gartner’s Critical Capabilities for Hyper-Converged Infrastructure report. This time, StarWind cracked into CRN’s top 10 list as a provider of reliable hyperconverged solutions for ROBO and business-critical tasks.
We [officially] rock! Find out more.
