Finally, StarWind Virtual Storage Appliance is available on Linux allowing you to save costs on Windows licensing. Being hypervisor-agnostic, StarWind VSA easily integrates into any IT infrastructure as a fully pre-configured virtual machine ready for deployment and operation. It simply installs in any existing environment requiring no specialized SAN skills and is managed using StarWind Web console or thick client allowing to control the entire storage infrastructure from a centralized console.
Join our Tap Room Meeting on April 27 11 am PT / 2 pm ET to see all benefits of the StarWind Linux-based VSA.
Register now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/dedicated-live-demo-session

StarWind Virtual SAN Free allows deploying a 2-node cluster providing a highly available storage for your virtual machines to Hyper-V or ESXi hypervisor for free. When deploying multi VSAN Free nodes, the data is synchronized across the network between the nodes. StarWind VSAN Free can be deployed in a hyperconverged model where VSAN Free is installed on hypervisor nodes or in a disaggregated model with separated compute and storage resources. StarWind VSAN Free management capabilities include PowerShell, with StarWind Management console available as a 30-day trial.

Read the full article by Romain Serre, a Senior Consultant at Lyon to learn how to deploy a 2-node StarWind VSAN Free for VMware ESXi 6.5 on Windows Server 2016 Core Edition.

StarWind gets closer to Linux users by providing them with special Linux-based Virtual Storage Appliance version combining the underlying OS and preinstalled StarWind Virtual SAN, allowing to save money on Windows Licensing when it’s unnecessary.
StarWind VSA is compatible with any hypervisor, be it Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, Xen or KVM and can be managed via a Web Management Console while additionally containing a StarWind vCenter plugin allowing to manage the product directly from vCenter Server.

Read the full article by Vladan Seget, IT and Virtualization consultant to learn more about StarWind Virtual SAN on Linux

AlwaysOn Basic Availability Groups (BAG) supported in SQL Server Standard Edition and AlwaysOn Availability Groups (AG) introduced in SQL Server Enterprise Edition were designed to create a replicated environment with improved failover capabilities. However, the two types provide different capabilities while also requiring different licensing costs.

Read the full article by Shashank Singh, Microsoft MVP, and SQL Server Architect to learn more about BAG and AG cost and functionality differences.

Migrating your VMs from one hypervisor to another may be quite a complicated task if there’s no decent virtual machine converter at hand. Fortunately, there are various V2V tools allowing to turn this process into a simple thing. But, when choosing a V2V converter, there are several factors you should take into consideration.

Read the full article to learn how to choose a V2V converter that will become a perfect fit for your needs.

StarWind is currently working on the new product - a flexible and customizable web-based platform which will allow users get the full control over their IT infrastructures from a single HTML5 graphical interface including S2D, Failover Clustering and Hyper-V. More information to be found in a nearby thread: https://mangolassi.it/topic/14114/help-starwind-to-pick-the-name-for-the-upcoming-product

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance utilizes Local Reconstruction Codes, Replication, and Grid Architecture to provide an ultimate fault tolerance rate while delivering sustained high performance. With StarWind HCA, the whole infrastructure remains operational even after multiple disk or node failures. In case a failure occurs, applications are automatically recovered to working cluster disks or nodes, allowing to easily withstand a failure of more than 50% of the cluster nodes.

Watch our video to learn how to get uncompromised resiliency with StarWind HCA
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/get-uncompromised-fault-tolerance-of-it-infrastructure-with-starwind-hyperconverged-appliance

With PowerShell, automatic deployment of Hyper-V VMs in Windows Server 2016 becomes a piece of cake
No doubts, commercial software for automatic VM deployment is great, but it may be too expensive comparing to the goals that need to be achieved. That’s where PowerShell kicks in. With PowerShell commands, the creation and configuration of Hyper-V virtual machines in Windows Server 2016 become a fairly simple thing. But, what is more important, you can create a script which deploys VMs of the same configuration automatically.

Read the full article by Boris Yurchenko, a Support Engineer at StarWind, to learn how to automate your VMs deployment with PowerShell in Windows Server 2016.

Installing an HTTPS certificate is just a tip of the iceberg. This certificate has a huge number of options that usually are hidden deep inside config files. Actually, these tiny details allow distinguishing a site that can be rendered vulnerable via HTTPS downgrade attack and the one that is really secure.

Read the full article by Gary Williams, a virtualization, storage, and Windows systems administrator, to achieve the highest security.

StarWind team will take the floor at Storage Field Day 15 to reveal new awesome backup storage technologies: Virtual Tape Library with Cloud and Object storage and backed by ProActive Support! Our speaking slot is the first in line: March 9, 8-10 am PT, don’t miss it!

For Livestream, go to https://www.facebook.com/TechFieldDay/ or watch on http://techfieldday.com/, Livestream.com - includes the entire event.

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