StarWind Software Named a 2016 "Cool Vendor" by Gartner

Vendors selected for the “Cool Vendor” report are innovative, impactful and intriguing

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MIDDLETON, MA – MAY 13, 2016 – StarWind Software, a leading provider of hyperconverged solutions, today announced that it has been included in the list of "Cool Vendors" in the “Cool Vendors for Compute Platforms, 2016” by Andrew Butler, Philip Dawson, George J. Weiss, 26 April 2016, (https://www.gartner.com/doc/3295517/cool-vendors-compute-platforms) report by Gartner, Inc. That is just a little under a year since StarWind created the StarWind HyperConverged Appliance – the ultimate virtualization infrastructure building block.

All virtualization vendors develop hardware products at some point, especially when the industry is at the peak. When it comes to Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) and Remote/Branch Offices (ROBO), the choice is typically dictated by IT team capabilities and budgets. Thus, simplicity and price are the key differentiators here. That’s exactly what StarWind HCA brought into the market – a turnkey, pre-built and pre-configured hyperconverged platform, which costs less than DIY kits.

It’s important to acknowledge, that StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is not associated with limited functionality, like typical low-cost solutions. The HCA is based on the years-proven versatile software – StarWind Virtual SAN (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san), so it provides features and performance usually found in Enterprise-class products. As a result, StarWind HyperConverged Appliance offers the following benefits:

• Exceptional Simplicity. The appliance requires minimum to no effort from the on-site IT team, because it is pre-configured and pre-tested by StarWind engineers. It’s basically the whole virtualization infrastructure “in a box”, with all the best-of-breed components from multiple vendors supported by StarWind.
• Cost lower than DIY kit. Getting all the components from partners at OEM prices, StarWind managed to reduce the overall price of the appliance to an absolute minimum. Additionally the HCA offers much savings in the long run, because maintenance, upgrades and scaling are still inexpensive – no “bait and hook”.
• Enterprise-class performance and features. The HCA core is StarWind Virtual SAN – the interoperable, high-performance and cost-saving Software-Defined Storage. It offers a number of features, such as server-side flash and memory caches, log-structuring and an absolutely minimalistic I/O path.

We believe this explains why Gartner included StarWind into the "Cool Vendors for Compute Platforms" list for 2016. The HCA stands out among other hyper-converged platforms, making an efficient virtualization infrastructure affordable for Small and Medium Businesses as well as ROBO.

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