CanPay Software Inc., a Canada-based software development company, had outdated hardware resources, the maintenance of which added extra expenses each year. So, the company needed a refresh but at a price affordable for small businesses. Using StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), CanPay Software replaces its end-of-life SANs, goes all-flash, builds a hyperconverged IT infrastructure, and reduces its IT operational expenses (OpEx).

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

Microsoft Adaptive Cards are a platform-agnostic method of sharing and displaying information that cloud apps can openly exchange. In essence, this occurs as snippets of a chosen UI being generated by the user in JSON format. This file can then be delivered to another app where it’ll adaptively transform the data into a native UI that adapts to its surroundings.

Read the article by Nicolas Prigent, a three-time Microsoft MVP, on the functionality of and how to begin with Microsoft Adaptive Cards.

Lipman Insurance Administrators Inc., a U.S. company specializing in employee benefits administration, had a mixed Windows/Unix environment with dedicated servers and clusters of servers for each business application that was time-consuming, costly, and problematic. Such an infrastructure provided for a multitude of hardware items and expensive support contracts with very little data redundancy. Using StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), Lipman Insurance Administrators adopts hyperconvergence, ensures the required redundancy, and achieves 24/7 business operations.

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

Containers and containerized applications are becoming more and more popular by the day, which is why they are part of the latest Windows Server operating system release. Moreover, Microsoft has also included several modifications designed to improve customer experience working with containerized apps.

Read the article by Brandon Lee, a virtualization expert, that explains what the new Windows Server 2022 platform improvements bring to the table for containerized apps in terms of ssecurity, management, and Azure integration.

Unlike the previous years' events, the VMware Explore 2022 was marked with the announcements of numerous novel projects, including the rebranding of previous ones. One of those is VMware Aria, formerly known as vRealize Cloud Management, which works both for the cloud and on-premises.

Read the article by Alex Samoylenko, virtualization technology professional, about top solutions that comprise the new VMware Aria product line that has gathered all the tools necessary for managing apps and virtual data centers.

Amethyst Academies Trust, a British education institution, needed to reduce high IT operational expenses (OpEx), connected with maintenance of aging hardware. There were also other issues that the organization struggled to resolve, namely low CPU performance and hindered security information management (SIMs) practices. By using StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), Amethyst Academies Trust builds a hyperconverged infrastructure, replaces end-of-life hardware resources, and cuts its IT operational expenses.

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

This time, the focus is on a “green” approach to IT infrastructure that can greatly improve budgeting for small- and midsize enterprises (SMEs). Powering a server rack or a full data center can result in high operating expenses (OpEx), due to a variety of both commonly known and hidden factors. Fortunately, you can save up a lot of that money annually by knowing all of them and going “green” on your IT.

Watch this StarWind video to learn about simple tricks that can help you to build a truly “green” IT infrastructure, thereby decreasing power consumption and related costs.

Siemens Parcel & Airport Logistics Private Limited, a logistics solutions provider, used costly physical SAN as part of their IT infrastructure serving their customers which entailed high maintenance costs and the problem of hardware clutter. Using StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), the company eliminates any need for physical shared storage, ensures high availability (HA), moves to hyperconvergence, and cuts IT operational expenses (OpEx) significantly.

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

vSphere 8 brings an abundance of cool new features. Among them, VMware Virtual Hardware Version 20 is even more efficient: newer CPU cores support, more VM count, ESXi instance on Smart NICs, higher VM density, up to 8 vGPU devices support, aware migration, NUMA nodes exposed in vSphere Client, and many many more!

Read the article by Vladan Seget, a virtualization expert, on the features and benefits you can expect from VMware Virtual Hardware Version 20 in vSphere 8.

Scott County Hospital, a US-based healthcare institution, had its Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system housed on a Unix box via local direct storage. Current IT infrastructure was not fault-tolerant, threatening critical data loss in the event of a host shutdown. Using StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), the organization deploys a high availability (HA) storage cluster, achieves zero downtime, and ensures a successful 24/7 operation of its EMR system.

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

Pekao Financial Services, a Polish company specializing in providing financial outsourcing services, required a storage replication solution to ensure continuous business operations and data integrity. The company had a VMware vSphere environment where a fault tolerance (FT) could not be achieved at a price affordable to SMBs. Using StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), Pekao Financial Services builds a high availability (HA) storage cluster and achieves 24/7 business operation, all at a very attractive price.

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

LocalStack is a free cloud service emulator that you can deploy locally. It runs in a single container and, emulating Amazon Web Services (AWS), allows you to test applications or play around with workflow without having to commit to paying for actual cloud services. Great solution for cloud-based testing and learning.

Read the article by Vladan Seget, a virtualization expert, on the LocalStack features and benefits as well as where to begin with it.

NWG Solutions, a full-service IT provider from the U.S., needed to ensure enterprise levels of infrastructure redundancy, without the cost, complexity, and the inverted pyramid of doom that existing SANs entail. StarWind's reputation among IT professionals, the polished nature of the product, the outstanding support, and the real-world testimonials the company received from actual StarWind’s customers set StarWind apart from other products. Using StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), NWG Solutions creates an HA cluster, achieves an enterprise-grade level of its IT infrastructure redundancy, and saves around $40K on its IT operational expenses (OpEx).

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

Microsoft Defender SmartScreen provides a host of new cybersecurity features in Windows 11 22H2, including better protection against phishing. Enterprises often overlook the threat of phishing, which is unfortunate because it’s a matter of human error, i.e. users lacking cybersecurity awareness. Windows 11 now helps tackle that.

Read the article by Brandon Lee, a virtualization expert, on the new security features in Windows 11 22H2, including enhanced phishing protection in Microsoft Defender SmartSreen.

BLDD Architects, a U.S. company operating in the field of architectural and structural design, had an aging SAN with VMware on top that entailed poor performance, complicated maintenance, and high operating costs. In this case, the IT infrastructure viability was out of the question. Using StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), BLDD Architects deploys a high availability (HA) cluster, builds maintenance-friendly and high-performance IT infrastructure, and ensures its business processes' balanced and long-term development.

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

Azure Shared Disks enables you to attach a managed disk to multiple virtual machines simultaneously. However, there are nuances to consider if you wish to migrate clustered applications from on-premises to your Azure subscription in such a configuration. This can be a planned migration or, for instance, a failover cluster setup.

Read the article by Nicolas Prigent, a three-time Microsoft MVP, on how to best use Azure Shared Disks in your IT environment.

Blocka Construction Inc., a U.S.-based construction company, had a non-reliable IT infrastructure consisting of a single bare-metal server that ran everything. There were no virtualization and no redundancy, and although files were being backed up, many configurations and settings were still not. All this entailed high maintenance costs. Using StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), Blocka Construction Inc. creates a hyperconverged IT environment, ensures high levels of performance, and saves $5,000 only on zero downtime characteristics.

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

vSphere 8 introduces VMware vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA), focused on efficiency, performance, and less CPU usage. The new configuration has been optimized for NVMe-based TLC flash devices, abandoning cache layers and disk groups. VMware will privilege the deployments of vSAN as ESA, moving forward.

Read the article by Vladan Seget, a virtualization expert, on the direction, features, and novelties regarding the new VMware vSAN ESA in vSphere 8.

Double Fine Productions, a US-based game development company, required a powerful environment to proceed and store all those tons of media data that it generates. Using just directly attached storage and a VMware vSphere hypervisor, the company could not achieve high performance. So, it was looking for shared storage to ensure decent application performance, fast recovery rates, and effective load balancing. Using StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN), Double Fine Productions creates a high availability (HA) cluster, enhances the overall infrastructure performance, and ensures the operation of its critical game services 24/7.

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

Wigmore Academy Trust, a British education institution, had a failover cluster consisting of a 3-node SAN with Hyper-V on top. The cost of renewal, complexity of supporting the stack, limited time and expertise in the IT team, and the expense of the SAN and node maintenance forced the organization to look for a hyperconverged platform. Implementing StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), Wigmore Academy Trust builds a remotely supported and managed IT infrastructure, ensures zero downtime, increases uptime up to 100%, and saves £20K over 5 years on IT operational expenses (OpEx).

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