Choosing a virtualization platform is a long-term call, not a quick swap. This 2026 guide by Dmytro Malynka for StarWind reviews 10 VMware competitors and highlights strengths, limitations, and the scenarios each platform serves best. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/13e

D.F. Pray, a U.S.-based design-build and general contracting company, struggled with slow VM performance and high upgrade costs caused by a non-CSV Hyper-V setup and an aging HPE MSA 2052 SAN with spinning disks. The company needed a cost-effective, high-performance storage solution that would simplify its infrastructure and fully utilize existing server hardware. By deploying StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN), D.F. Pray improves storage performance, simplifies its Hyper-V environment, and achieves reliable CSV clustering and better use of existing hardware, thus reducing operational costs and gaining consistent uptime for daily operations. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/13b

If VMware is no longer a given in your environment, you need a new decision model. Our new 2026 virtualization vendor checklist by Ivan Ishchenko for StarWind explains what to look for in performance, availability, licensing, and the long-term roadmap so you can replatform with confidence. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/138

Hyper-V checkpoints are a lifesaver during testing and patching, but only if they are used correctly. In our latest guide by Karim Buzdar, an IT Engineer & Linux Expert, for StarWind, you will learn how to create, restore, rename, export, and delete Hyper-V checkpoints using both the graphical interface and PowerShell, plus the most important best practices to avoid performance and storage issues. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/135

Wigmore Academy Trust, a U.K.-based educational organization operating a school network, struggled with an aging SAN, high renewal costs, and a complex failover cluster that its small IT team lacked the time and expertise to support. They needed a simple, fully supported hyperconverged infrastructure that improved reliability and removed the burden of constant monitoring and maintenance. By implementing StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), Wigmore Academy Trust replaces the old SAN setup with an easy-to-manage, fully supported cluster that boosts performance, ensures 100% uptime, and frees the IT team to focus on users. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/12z

From a few hours of downtime to just minutes per year, availability “nines” make a huge difference. Learn from our latest article by Vladyslav Savchenko for StarWind how High Availability works and how HA architecture translates theory into business continuity. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/12w

Building realistic lab environments usually means more hardware and more cost. Our latest guide by Karim Buzdar, an IT Engineer & Linux Expert, for StarWind shows how to enable Nested Virtualization in Microsoft Hyper-V so a single VM can host its own virtual machines.
It covers host requirements, PowerShell configuration, networking tweaks, and how to confirm that everything works inside the guest system. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/12t

Trumid Technologies, LLC, a U.S.-based fintech company, faced an infrastructure risk as its Hyper-V environment was running on end-of-life servers and could no longer provide reliable high availability (HA). The company required a shared storage solution that supports Hyper-V, delivers HA, and allows future expansion to a clustered storage architecture. By deploying StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN), Trumid Technologies, LLC modernizes its Hyper-V infrastructure, achieves HA shared storage on new servers, and ensures stable and easy-to-manage operations for business-critical trading systems. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/12q

North Mississippi Health Services-South Marion, a U.S.-based community hospital, faced very high IT costs, including forced hardware refreshes of over $100,000 every 5-6 years, making its Nutanix and VMware infrastructure too expensive to maintain. The organization needed a reliable shared storage solution that could improve operations while allowing it to reuse existing hardware. By deploying StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN), North Mississippi Health Services-South Marion creates a high-availability cluster, gains higher performance and real-time storage redundancy, and saves about $85,000 in capital expenses. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/12n

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone is often seen as a legacy tool, but version 9.0 proves otherwise.
Our latest article by Alex Samoylenko for StarWind explains how vCenter Converter fits into modern P2V and V2V migration workflows, what’s new in the latest release, and how it compares to VMware HCX. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/12k

Stateful workloads are becoming the norm in Kubernetes environments. Our latest article by Marius Sandbu, a cloud-native and end-user computing expert, for StarWind walks you through VMware Cloud Native Storage (CNS), explaining how CSI, SPBM, and vCenter work together to deliver enterprise-grade storage for containers on vSphere. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/12h

Veeam Agent for Windows (Free) is a practical solution for protecting individual laptops and desktops without deploying a full backup infrastructure.
Our latest article by Vladan Seget for StarWind explains how standalone image-based backups work, what’s included in the free Veeam Agent edition, and when it makes sense to move to managed mode for small teams. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/12e

COFED, a government body that manages EU-funded development projects in the DRC, relied on a single data server, resulting in long service outages whenever the data center failed. The organization needed a simple and reliable way to keep data synchronized and services continuously available even if one server went offline. By deploying StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) in a two-node high-availability cluster, COFED ensured automatic failover and uninterrupted operations with fully synchronized data. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/12b

AI teams often blame models or compute when performance drops, but the real issue is data movement. In 2026, storage architecture directly impacts training speed and overall AI costs.
Our new article by Ivan Ischenko for StarWind explains how AI storage works, why it is needed now, and what to look for when choosing a platform. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/128

Burnham Holdings, Inc., a U.S. manufacturer of HVAC products, had an aging Hyper-V cluster with a traditional SAN that needed upgrading, but VMware vSAN was too costly and complex for their requirements. The company was looking for a cost-effective, high-availability (HA) storage solution that could be deployed easily and work seamlessly with VMware ESXi. By implementing StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN), Burnham Holdings, Inc. creates a fault-tolerant, HA VMware ESXi cluster, ensuring reliable performance, continuous manufacturing and administrative operations, and significant cost savings in its IT infrastructure. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/125

Microsoft Entra ID is at the core of cloud identity and access management. Our step-by-step guide by Paolo Valsecchi, a System Engineer, for StarWind explains how to back it up with Veeam Backup & Replication to ensure fast recovery of users, roles, and policies when incidents occur. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/122

Manual WinRE troubleshooting doesn’t scale. New recovery features in Windows 11 aim to standardize and automate repair when devices fail to boot.
Learn from our new detailed article by Brandon Lee, an IT consultant, for StarWind how these Windows Recovery changes reduce downtime and support hybrid workforces. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/11z

The client company of PurpleJelly, a British IT services provider, had a single HP pedestal server running Microsoft Hyper-V that lacked failover and disaster recovery. They needed a cost-effective and highly available virtualization solution without investing in additional hardware. By deploying StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN), PurpleJelly provides full server virtualization for its client’s company infrastructure and enables cost-effective failover and disaster recovery, ensuring continuous uptime and improved business resilience. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/11w

Selux, a global manufacturer of sustainable lighting solutions, relied on multiple standalone physical servers running Hyper-V, creating single points of failure and requiring constant hardware expansion to support system upgrades. The company needed a cost-effective and easy-to-manage solution that would eliminate hardware dependency and ensure 24/7 business operations. By deploying StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), Selux replaces physical servers with a fully redundant, preconfigured, and easily scalable hyperconverged platform, achieving continuous uptime for its design and manufacturing processes. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/11t