Windows Server 2019 is coming, and it should bring some cool features to Windows-powered IT environments. These changes are not only about Windows Server itself but also Storage Spaces Direct, Microsoft’s software-defined storage solution. Why be excited? Microsoft finally brings the long-awaited data deduplication on ReFS! In other words Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2019 will become fast and flexible without compromising storage utilization efficiency.

Read the full article by Romain Serre, a Senior Consultant, to learn more about new S2D features and why you may need it.

Not that long time ago, Microsoft released Cumulative Update 10 for Exchange Server 2016. Its new version brings not only some functionality updates but also better security and remedy to some quality issues reported by users. But, this update is not only about improved functioning and user experience! Installation prerequisites are the most remarkable change here, so take your time and find out more about them before updating.

Check out the recent article by Karim Buzdar, a Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate for Server Infrastructure, to learn more about new Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 10 installation prerequisites and how to install the update.

For some reason, VMware Skyline, proactive support technology for some VMware products, isn’t common knowledge for many VMware users. But wait, what is this service, actually, for? Skyline allows to not only check how smoothly your VMware infrastructure runs but also prevent possible failures. So, that’s high time to learn more about it and make your infrastructure-related routines easier!

Find out how more about VMware Skyline and when you need it in the recent article by Alex Samoylenko, a virtualization technology professional.

In the modern world, where virtualization becomes an every-day thing, it’s vital to ensure data safety. And, data safety, in turn, begins from connection safety, right? Sure, there are many ways to ensure connection safety, but, let’s talk about something old but gold today —Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol. Why? It’s easy to set up, simple to manage, and is “one size fits all” for most environments!

Check out the recent article by Vladislav Savchenko, a Technical Support Engineer at StarWind, to learn more about Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol and how to set it up in different environments

Fully cloud-based infrastructures are a hot topic in modern IT. However, some companies cannot go entirely-cloud due to availability, security, and management concerns. So, these guys run production on the hardware that cannot ensure decent scalability and disaster recovery and, what is more important, limits innovation. There’s a great workaround for these guys – hybrid cloud.

Learn from the video why and how to build hybrid cloud infrastructure with Microsoft Azure and StarWind Virtual SAN

Even though numerous Software Defined Storage solutions exist, picking the right one may be kinda of a quest for VMware vSphere users. These guys are typically limited with strict hardware compatibility lists or may need some special skills to deploy and manage such solutions. Also, they may face Windows licensing that can sometimes devastate budgets. Familiar with those pains? Here, free Linux-based StarWind Virtual SAN comes to play. Now, things change, so forget about changing the environment or paying a dime to ensure availability of your apps in vSphere environment!

Learn from our upcoming free webinar how to promote availability of your applications running in VMware vSphere with Linux-based StarWind Virtual SAN

Register now!

Talking about SQL Server 2016 features, it won’t be fair to leave Always Encrypted aside. This feature prevents your sensitive data from leaking out and enables to get more freedom for your data placement choices. Always Encrypted comes in handy, when, let’s say, you hire external vendors to administer your SQL server and do not want them to see your sensitive data, or when both your client and data are hosted in Azure. So, if you still do not use it, that’s high time to start!

Read the full article by Mikhail Rodionov, IT engineer focusing on applications and infrastructure support domains, to learn more about SQL Server Always Encrypted benefits and why and when you need it.

Some month ago, Microsoft released a new Azure feature allowing to deploy service catalogs right in the public cloud. What is that thing for? To make teamwork in Azure a breath! Now, thanks to prebuilt templates and controlled parameters, your teams can deploy web apps or VMs so that they won’t break your budget (if you set everything right, of course).

Learn how to deploy service catalogs in Azure in the full article by Florent Appointaire, a Microsoft Engineer specialized in Cloud Technologies.

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.

Let’s be honest, any system administrator may face the need of hot-adding the network interfaces to the guest VMs in his Microsoft Hyper-V environment one day. And that’s no problem as Windows Server 2016 brought in a whole set of useful features, one of which is the ability to add and remove network adapters on the running VMs. Moreover, you can do that in two ways – GUI, if you’re looking for a straightforward process and PowerShell if you are a fan of automation.

Read the full article by Boris Yurchenko, a Technical Support Engineer at StarWind, to learn how to easily manage Hyper-V virtual NICs on the go.

These days, businesses do not stick to one location anymore. Such trend pushes companies to build stretched clusters, IT infrastructures spanned across several locations. Such approach enables them to implement better disaster recovery strategies and achieve higher performance. To build such environments, you need fast connection and the solution to use resources of all your remote sites just as they were located in one place. Here, StarWind Virtual SAN comes into play – the solution for building high performing active-active replicated shared storage.

Read the full article by Dmytro Malynka, a Solutions Architect at StarWind, to learn more how to build a stretched cluster with StarWind Virtual SAN, and its benefits.

Building cloud-based infrastructures is a hot topic in IT these days. Still, some companies cannot do that due to security, availability, and management concerns. So, they run productions on their on-premises hardware that often hardly scales out, delivers poor disaster recovery, and, what is more important, limits their innovations. We’ve come up with a workaround for these guys!

Find out in our upcoming free webinar how to extend your IT environment to Microsoft Azure with StarWind Virtual SAN.

Register now!

Building cloud-based infrastructures is a hot topic in IT these days. Still, some companies cannot do that due to security, availability, and management concerns. So, they run productions on their on-premises hardware that often hardly scales out, delivers poor disaster recovery, and, what is more important, limits their innovations. We’ve come up with a workaround for these guys!

Find out in our upcoming free webinar how to extend your IT environment to Microsoft Azure with StarWind Virtual SAN.

Register now!

These days, database availability is a must-have for most business. And you, a database admin, are to ensure it. Of course, you need some tools for that purpose. As usual, we know how to help you. In this video, our expert takes a closer look at SQL Server AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances technology: its implementation best practices, benefits, how to achieve true HA with this approach and bring better disaster recovery strategies to life using it, and how StarWind Virtual SAN comes in handy!

Find out more about a way to keep your production and database highly available.

Tape backup and offsite vaulting was probably the last process in IT relying on regular manual labor. Until now. We have a solution that replaces your physical tape process with one that offers fully-automated backup, offsite vaulting, and recovery. The solution also fulfills the 3-2-1-0 backup strategy with your Veeam backups securely stored offsite in cost-efficient Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage. All this in just 3 simple steps and zero changes to the established tape backup process thanks to StarWind Storage Gateway for Backblaze.

Want to see how to do set it up in less than 5 minutes? Join us for the upcoming webinar “3 Easy Steps to replace LTO with Backblaze B2 in Veeam” on June 6, 8:00 pm.

Register here

We all know what backup window really is, right? It’s an extremely short period of time that you are supposed to fit all your backup processes in somehow. Still, this challenge looks not that hard to accomplish as long as you are using that time wisely. That’s, actually, what Veeam Backup & Replication backup job chaining is intended for!

Find out how and why to chain Veeam Backup & Replication jobs in the full article by Romain Serre, a Senior Consultant.

Fairly often, inexperienced users suffer from malware. Sometimes, that stuff consumes the vast amount of your PC power to mine cryptocurrency for some bad guys. Well, that’s probably not a thing you want, right? So, if your PC running Windows 10 Enterprise becomes too slow without any good reason, there may be a high time to install Defender Application Guard.

Read the full article by Vladan Seget, an IT and Virtualization consultant.

Install Gitlab: the tool that comes in handy for any admin
Many of us view Gitlab as something that only developers may use. Indeed, these guys love it, but are they the only ones who may find it handy? That’s time to dispel that myth! Gitlab is more than the cool repository for scripts of any size and shape. It is a feature-rich solution, so that won’t be fair to leave that thing on the table.

Find out more about what Gitlab is and how to enable HTTPS and container registry in the full article by Gary Williams, a virtualization, storage, and Windows systems administrator.

Regarding the growing demand on the cloud, it’s no problem finding a cloud storage provider. However, there are only few market players that can be considered true leaders of this industry. Amazon is one of these guys, with S3 cloud storage serving a perfect fit for any business regardless of its size. But still, even Amazon’s customers face several challenges during data migration process to S3, especially, when it comes to petabytes.

Read the full article by Sergey Sanduliak, a Technical Support Engineer at StarWind, to learn about 5 awesome solutions that make data migration to AWS easier.

Looking to replace your tape-based backup infrastructure with cost-efficient and convenient cloud and backup storage but don’t wanna ruin the established backup process? Join us at VeeamON 2018 to find a remedy to this problem – new free StarWind Virtual Tape Library technology! At the event, Max Kolomyeytsev, Product Director at StarWind, will take the floor with a presentation: "How to keep your backup process unchanged when replacing physical tapes with object and cloud storage” to showcase all the benefits of this new solution. When? May 16, 1:35 PM.

We’re waiting for you at booth 501.

Learn more about StarWind VTL free here!