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.

NVMe over TCP promises high-speed, low-latency storage over Ethernet without specialized hardware. We explore its practical applications, advantages, and limitations in modern IT infrastructure in our latest article by Dmytro Malynka, StarWind Product Manager. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/ct

FinZey Finance, a Saudi Arabian financial company, faced challenges with isolated HPE servers lacking a dedicated SAN, risking downtime and inefficiency. The company needed a cost-effective solution to achieve high availability (HA) and failover for its VMware infrastructure without investing in a costly SAN. By deploying StarWind Virtual SAN (#VSAN), FinZey Finance combines the internal storage of its three hosts into a fault-tolerant shared storage system, ensuring HA and seamless failover for its IT infrastructure supporting critical financial services. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/cq

AWS offers multiple ways to back up your S3 data, but not all of them are cost-effective or secure. Discover the best backup methods, storage class options, and expert tips in our latest guide by Dmytro Malynka, StarWind Product Manager, to keep your data safe. Read more: https://starwind.com/s/cn

Need to check your #network status, tweak #firewall_rules, or configure WiFi settings? Netsh is a built-in Windows tool that lets you do all that and more from the command line. Here's our latest handy guide by Vladan Seget, a virtualization expert, for StarWind with the most useful commands. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/ck

Sun Peaks Resort, a Canadian premier vacation destination, struggled with the complexity of managing Mircosoft Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) in its Hyper-V environment, making storage management and troubleshooting unintuitive. The resort needed a hyperconverged solution to enhance system reliability and ensure high availability (HA). By implementing StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), Sun Peaks Resort gains a high-performance, easy-to-manage hyperconverged IT infrastructure with seamless storage management, HA, and exceptional support, ensuring uninterrupted guest services and operational stability. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/ch

Virtualization is evolving, and open-source solutions are gaining ground. We take a close look at Proxmox VE and XCP-ng in our latest guide by Ivan Ischenko, StarWind Pre-Sales Engineer, comparing their architecture, features, performance, storage options, and support cost. Which one is right for your business? Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/ce

Share IT Limited, a London-based managed IT services provider (MSP), had a highly available (HA) IT infrastructure with clustered hypervisors, HA networks, firewalls, and switches, but storage remained a single point of failure (SPOF). The company needed a cost-effective HA storage solution to eliminate SPOF in its infrastructure and replace unreliable single-node storage arrays. By implementing StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN), Share IT Limited creates a 2-node HA cluster with synchronous replication, improves performance, eliminates data loss risks, and enables seamless maintenance without IT services disruption. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/c5

If you're running Windows Server 2025 or Windows 11, you can create a Dev Drive – an optimized volume designed for development workloads.
Find out how to set it up and boost your build performance in our latest article by Vladan Seget, a virtualization expert, for StarWind. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/c2

Is your DR plan ready for a Hyper-V host failure? Learn how Hyper-V Replica ensures you’re back up and running fast. Explore the setup process, best practices, and key benefits of this built-in Windows Server feature from the step-by-step guide by StarWind Pre-Sales Engineer Anton Vovchuk. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/bZ

The Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) faced performance issues with its data center’s SAN, which couldn’t support new vital signs software. The university needed to achieve higher levels of uptime and redundancy to run critical healthcare software without buying new physical SAN units. By deploying StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN), the UAB Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine creates a highly available (HA) stretched cluster, eliminates the need for costly SAN upgrades, and enables the use of new vital signs capturing software. Read more here: https://starwind.com/s/bW