VMware OS Optimization Tool (OSOT) is a neat piece of software to optimize your on-prem or cloud OS. Originally designed for VMware Horizon, OSOT is fully applicable to Windows desktop and Windows Server. It allows to eliminate unneeded settings, switch off features, clean up older junk from your OS, and otherwise enhance its functionality.

Read the new article by Vladan Seget, a virtualization expert, about how you can easily optimize your Windows OS performance thanks to VMware OSOT.

VMware App Volumes is a software solution meant to deliver ready-to-use apps right to the users' VMs, providing them with instant access to the required application. Formerly belonging to the CloudVolumes, it was released as the part of VMware Horizon line to decouple package management and delivery. Packaging once and deploying everywhere, VMware App Volumes brings the user experience to the whole new level.

Read the new article by Alex Samoylenko, a virtualization technology professional, about how you can simplify your workflow thanks to VMware App Volumes.

Milchwerk Jäger GmbH, a German dairy manufacturing company, had a bulky IT infrastructure that entailed exorbitant maintenance costs. The company tried different hardware and software products from different virtualization vendors to resolve its problems of high IT operational expenses and low IT infrastructure performance, but each time it came across some kind of bug that only worsened the situation. This lasted until the company implemented the StarWind solution. Using StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), Milchwerk Jäger GmbH builds a hyperconverged infrastructure and saves 1,5-2 million dollars every year on its IT operational expenses.

Find out how Milchwerk Jäger GmbH boosts the IT infrastructure performance with StarWind HCA.

There are many “moving parts” to cybersecurity, among which, encryption is on the frontline. Previously, you’d have to use a third-party key management solution to facilitate security in a vSphere environment. Now, you can use Native Key Provider to integrate vSAN encryption, VM encryption, and virtual Trusted Platform Modules (vTPM).

Read the article by Brandon Lee, a virtualization expert, on best practices for using VMware Native Key Provider properly to enhance your vSphere security.

The National Archives of Estonia, a government agency, had a rigid IT infrastructure built around Dell AX4-5 array interconnected via redundant FC switches and HBAs with VMware ESXi on top. The IT environment was to become more manageable, Highly Available (HA), and optimized without getting upgraded. Thanks to StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), the agency achieves its growth optimization by creating a 2-node HA cluster.

Find out how The National Archives of Estonia gets an HA StarWind vSAN-based IT infrastructure always prepared for the growing work challenges.

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is the present-day standard for mission-critical IT infrastructure. It’s not the privilege of large enterprises anymore. Software has brought HCI to small businesses as well as remote offices and edge deployments. But with so many options available for consideration, how to claim the best one for your needs?

Read this handy guide by ISG Research about the rapidly growing HCI market, HCI use cases for modern workloads, and how to choose HCI for your business right today.

Connecting Azure Active Directory (AD) joined VMs to Azure Virtual Desktop (VD) is a sure-fire way to simplify environment operation in your VDI. This way, you can skip your Azure VMs having line-of-sight of on-prem or virtualized AD Domain Controller (DC), deploying AD Domain Services, and sometimes its can even remove the need for DC entirely. Less complication, more efficiency.

Read the guide by Florent Appointare, a Microsoft Engineer, on how to easily connect your AD-joined VMs to Azure VD for smoother environment functionality and operation.

Dpt. Business Management at Universitat Politècnica València, a Spanish technological university, sought for high availability (HA) for its educational data records. So the organization banked on virtual shared storage. Using StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), Dpt. Business Management at Universitat Politècnica València keeps its educational data records always HA by creating a failover cluster at no extra costs.

Find out how the Polytechnic University of Valencia gains confidence that in the event of an incident its services will continue to operate thanks to constant HA provided with StarWind vSAN.

Rank Group PLC, a British entertainment and gaming company, was left with the decision of having to find a new option to ensure that its IT environments at retail spots are fault-tolerant. After VMware VSA was retired, the company needed another solution to maintain the sheer flawlessness of its data flow 24/7 without buying more proprietary hardware. Using StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), Rank Group PLC deploys a highly available (HA) storage cluster and ensures 24/7 business operations of its retail venues.

Find out how Rank Group PLC achieves constant uptime, maximum bandwidth, and fault tolerance for its retail server estate without the cost of extra hardware thanks to StarWind vSAN.

The virtualization world keeps on driving at full speed. VMware recently released a big pack of upgrades to its Tools. Among others, the most interesting updates relate to certain critical vulnerabilities, support for new guest OS products, and, what’s really nice, backward compatibility capabilities with older VMware products.

Read the new article by Vladan Seget, a virtualization expert, on the most practical and beneficial insights into the new VMware Tools updates package v12.

Azure Data Explorer is a powerful software for real-time analysis of large volumes of streamed data. However, it can be used for data storage as well, and it’s cheaper than Microsoft Sentinel. Additionally, the service is useful if you want to query logs with Kusto Query Language (KQL), which is also available for Azure Log Analytics.

Read the article by Nicolas Prigent, a three-time Microsoft MVP, on how to transfer your Microsoft Sentinel logs to Azure Data Explorer for cheaper data storage and robust data analytics.

TrendHR, a US human resource outsourcing company, struggled with the high total cost of ownership (TCO) and upfront investment for end-of-support and aging hardware. The replacement solutions were cost-intensive, required an additional number of nodes, and correspondingly, extra costs on maintenance, and provided no high availability (HA). Using StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), TrendHR builds a hyperconverged infrastructure and achieves flexibility for growth in many ways and full HA on a budget.

Find out how TrendHR reduces the TCO for hardware and avoids having to invest in additional expensive network switches for its storage network by staying with a 2-node solution thanks to StarWind HCA.

GRAID, the world’s first NVMe-oF RAID card, is now part of StarWind Backup Appliance. The card’s innovative technology allows you to offload RAID processing from CPUs onto itself. This way, GRAID liberates the much-needed compute for smooth and ultrafast application performance, as high as 16M IOPS with 110GB/s throughput!

Learn more about how GRAID SupremeRAID makes StarWind Backup Appliance the ultimate backup solution that has no rivals on the market.

Benny D’Angelo Transport, a Canadian carrier company, had an IT infrastructure with a single point of failure (SPOF) issue that led to service malperformance and monetary loss. The company’s NAS was unable to ensure high performance because of the workload and crashed a few times. Using StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), Benny D’Angelo Transport creates a fault-tolerant Hyper-V cluster and ensures constant uptime for its applications.

Find out how Benny D’Angelo Transport boosts its carrier services performance with high availability (HA) provided by StarWind vSAN.

VMware Dynamic Environment Manager (DEM) is used to manage profile settings for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) users. The tool is designed for VMware Horizon and has a wide range of functions, among which there’s a handy ability to retain customizations and files of a user in their VD profile while storing them in a File Server.

Read the new guide by Paolo Valsecchi, a virtualization expert, on the benefits of using VMware DEM to effectively manage profile settings for dedicated users in a VDI.

Modern backups demand huge investments. For instance, investing in a backup strategy and its hardware, software, and network requirements today involves a lot of effort and money put into a proper configuration. This approach makes it complicated, costly, and ineffective, as loopholes are bound to emerge. StarWind deals away with all those pain points.

Read the T_HQ article on how StarWind Backup Appliance treads the best path between price-quality, efficiency, solid data security, and ease of backup administration.

Eurokars Group Indonesia, a multi-franchise automotive dealership entity, wanted to upgrade existing virtualization, but could not afford the cost of new SAN. Following the hyperconverged scenario built upon StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), Eurokars Group Indonesia builds a scalable IT environment to ensure sustainable business growth.

Find out how Eurokars Group Indonesia improves performance, flexibility, and scalability of its IT infrastructure with StarWind vSAN.

SexiGraph is open-source community-based software for monitoring vSphere, including V7 U3, vSAN and its APIs. The project leverages a Grafana frontend and is very fast at providing all kinds of vSphere-related data in an appealing visual format. Definitely worth checking out if you want VMware environment data quick and easy on the eyes.

Read the new article by Vladan Seget, a virtualization expert, on how to monitor VMware using SexiGraph, a handy tool for making vSphere data easily available and comprehensible.

Accu-Tec, an American contract packaging company, struggled with the problem of the high acquisition and maintenance costs of a standalone SAN. A lack of redundancy and no support from an unstable manufacturer were the most critical issues of the existing IT infrastructure that had to be addressed as soon as practicably possible. Using StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), the company creates a hyperconverged cluster, accomplishes full-redundancy goals at no extra costs, receives a single point of contact for all maintenance and management, and obtains 24/7 proactive support.

Find out how Accu-Tec accumulates over $80,000 for enhancing its operations and growing its core business with StarWind HCA.

Hyperconvergence and virtualization are vital to a growing, successful retail business. Smooth connection between individual spots and HQ, flawless retail and finance software operation, fault tolerance at shops, backups – you name it. It all has to work without a hiccup to keep both data and customers. StarWind knows how to achieve all that effortlessly.

Register for FREE in the link to attend Retail Technology Show 2022 in London and find out how to make your retail highly available from StarWind Engineers themselves!