To get the precise and correct picture of your storage performance, several factors must be considered, such as system's speed and capacity, processing power, network bandwidth and disks. Therefore, the most important indicators for proper storage benchmark are the number of IOPS, latency and network throughput. StarWind Storage Test tool provides a detailed information on these characteristics and allows comparing your local storage and highly available shared storage performance.

Learn how to properly measure your storage performance using StarWind Storage Test tool.

Watch the video: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/compare-the-performance-of-your-local-storage-and-starwind-highly-available-shared-storage

StarWind Grid Architecture allows building a highly fault-tolerant cluster capable of withstanding multiple nodes failure by interconnecting the nodes together into a single and resilient grid. Such cluster topology maintains the principle of data locality, where VMs receive the shortest way to the storage, delivering lower latency and as a result – high performance of the system.

Watch now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/building-a-high-performing-and-fault-tolerant-cluster-with-starwind-grid-architecture-video

To make the life of system administrators easier, StarWind has decided to further expand its feature set with StarWind Swordfish Provider delivering API functionality that simplifies storage allocation, monitoring, and management. The addition of Swordfish API ultimately simplifies the integration of StarWind into any existing environment and allows controlling your storage infrastructure from a single pane of glass.

Read the full article by Alex Bykovskyi, a Solutions Architect at StarWind to learn how to configure and implement StarWind Swordfish Provider.

During this webinar, StarWind will be benchmarking and comparing the performance of local storage and Highly Available shared storage created with StarWind Virtual SAN. Also, it will discuss the best practices for testing storage performance. StarWind Storage Test tool will be used to perform the benchmark as it delivers a detailed picture of the storage performance and compares the amount of compute power utilized in both cases.

Register now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/compare-the-performance-of-your-local-storage-and-starwind-highly-available-shared-storage

A Virtual Private Network connection allows creating a secure connection over shared or public networks, such as the Internet, to a private network at a remote location. VPN can be installed on Windows Server 2016 to protect the network and remote connection from attacks or data sniffing via tunneling protocols inside of a standard data connection.

Read the full article by Vladan Seget, IT and Virtualization consultant to learn how to deploy Remote Access VPN on Windows Server 2016.

StarWind Virtual Tape Library eliminates any need for physical tapes by emulating the existing tape hardware on HDDs, accelerating the backup process and allowing it to fit the backup window. It allows transferring backups to cost efficient cloud storage like Microsoft Azure, delivering an extra level of protection and cutting down storage expenses. Integration of StarWind VTL with Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager and Azure protects the data from any type of disasters and ensures the “3-2-1” backup rule.

Read the full article by Alex Khorolets, a technical support engineer at StarWind to learn how to deploy StarWind VTL as a backup repository for Microsoft SCDPM 2016 in Azure cloud storage.

The Microsoft Active Directory Migration Tool v3.2 is a free utility allowing to migrate object like users, groups, computers, profiles etc. between two Windows Server Active Directory domains in the same forest using the ADMT console, command line, and VBScript. This post is particularly focused on migrating users, groups and computers account from child domain to parent domain using ADMT snap-in and PowerShell.

Read the full article by Karim Buzdar, a Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate for Server Infrastructure to learn more about Intraforest migration with the help of ADMT v3.2.

Microsoft has released the new Virtual Network Peering feature allowing to connect 2 Virtual Networks in the same region through the Azure Datacenter network. The new functionality allows to connect 2 Azure Resource Manager VNets in the same or different subscription or to connect ARM VNet to Classic VNet in the same subscription.

Read the full article by Florent Appointaire, a Microsoft Engineer specialized in Cloud Technologies to learn more about Azure VNet peering capabilities: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/azure-virtual-network-peering

Dell Performance Analysis Collection Kit helps to eliminate overspending, speed-up decision-making and analyze opportunities for IT infrastructure virtualization and expansion by providing users with full information on their current environment. Dell DPACK analyzes such core characteristics as IOPS, latency and server workload delivering comprehensive and detailed reports with aggregated information on the entire system and on individual servers.

Learn how to use Dell DPACK to properly plan your IT environment virtualization.

Watch the video: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/how-to-understand-your-it-environment-with-dell-dpack

Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controllers are responsible for granting or denying user’s access to system-wide resources, such as printers, documents, and network locations using the single name and password. Proper configurations, such as setting up two Domain Controllers and backing up one of them, allow creating a fault-tolerant and highly available environment.

Learn about proper Active Directory Domain Controllers configurations to create a fault-tolerant environment.

Watch now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/useful-tips-for-setting-up-microsoft-active-directory-domain-controllers-video

Dell Performance Analysis Collection Kit is a free and agentless tool providing the full information on the IT environment performance and estimating opportunities for its virtualization. DPACK analyzes such core parameters as disk IO, throughput, capacity and memory utilization and provides two types of reports: in-depth individual server report and an aggregation of resource needs across disparate servers with a simulation of those workloads when migrated to shared platforms.

Watch our webinar to learn how to properly analyze your environment with Dell DPACK.
Register now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/dedicated-live-demo-session

The so-called “grid architecture” allows building a high-performing and fault-tolerant cluster without losing the principle of “data locality” for maximum performance. In such cluster topology, nodes are connected into a single grid, delivering a high resiliency rate and allowing the cluster to stay operational even after multiple nodes failure.

Join our Tap Room to learn about the benefits that StarWind Grid Architecture will bring to your IT infrastructure.
Register now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/dedicated-live-demo-session-next

Microsoft Active Directory allows organizations to store and manage network resources, including users, computers, and services in a centralized and standardized system. Domain controllers are the server computers responsible for user authentication in a Windows domain. To provide fault tolerance of your environment, each domain requires two functioning domain controllers located on different servers.

Watch our webinar to learn useful tips on setting up domain controllers in your infrastructure.
Register now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/dedicated-live-demo-session

StarWind Virtual Tape Library converts existing hardware into virtual tapes becoming a perfect backup repository solution for Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager. Integrating StarWind VTL with SCDPM 2016 allows to replace slow physical tapes with a virtual tape library and improve the performance of your backup infrastructure while achieving the 3-2-1 backup rule.

Watch our webinar to learn how StarWind VTL and SCDPM combine to increase your backup infrastructure performance.

Register now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/dedicated-live-demo-session

StarWind Linux-based Virtual Storage Appliance is the best way to test StarWind virtual shared storage features and capabilities without disrupting you Linux-oriented IT infrastructure. StarWind Virtual Storage Appliance simply deploys as a pre-configured virtual machine requiring no Windows licenses. It supports multiple hypervisors, such as KVM, Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware ESXi and can be easily managed using StarWind Web Console or thick client.

Watch the video to learn more about StarWind Linux-based Virtual Storage Appliance functionality:
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-storage-appliance-on-linux-video

@DustinB3403 Agree, but in most cases, 4TB HDD will be enough for a small home lab. The key is to build a cluster out of those servers, excluding an additional RAID feature.

Supermicro company, ranking one of the leading positions in server development, has recently released two compact servers: SuperServer E200-8D and SuperServer E300-8D. Delivering powerful characteristics together with minimal deployment space, these servers become a perfect fit for educational purposes, virtualization and running minor networking and firewall applications or security appliances.

Read the full article by Alex Khorolets, a technical support engineer at StarWind to learn more about Supermicro servers

While Linux virtual machines in Amazon Web Services became a widespread practice, Ubuntu decided to go further and released an OS version with a customized kernel for AWS. The AWS-tuned kernel offers up to 30 percent faster kernel boot speed while taking advantage of AWS’s Elastics Network Adapter providing high throughput of up to 20G bps for virtual instances.

Read the full article by Augusto Alvarez, Principal Consultant in Dell EMC to learn more about the AWS-tuned Ubuntu kernel.

In this project, you can find a step-by-step guide on how to build a virtualization IT infrastructure using 2 stackable Cisco Catalyst 3850 switches, 3 HP ProLiant DL 360 G9 servers with VMware ESX hypervisors and StarWind Virtual SAN for storage virtualization. The first two parts show the process from the very beginning – from opening the boxes to configuring Cisco 3850 stack and building the HP DL 360 Generation 9 server.

Watch full videos by itikabc, to see how to build a virtualization infrastructure from scratch:

Part 1: Cisco 3850, HP DL 360 G9, vSphere 6.5 and Starwind Project Part 1
Part 2: Cisco 3850, HP DL 360 G9, vSphere 6.5 and Starwind Project Part 2

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