Because it's the future

Why Hyperconvergence?

A traditional IT infrastructure typically has multiple independent components, often from different vendors. This causes 2 common issues: first, each component requires dedicated management tools. And second: some tinkering is always required to make all components run together smoothly. These issues are partially solved by converged infrastructures (CI). Customer gets a set of separate compute, storage, and networking resources optimized for better interoperability. However, this approach doesn’t solve the administration complexity issues, requiring dedicated tools to manage different parts of the infrastructure. One more CI drawback is non-transparent scaling. Servers, storage, and networking equipment has to be scaled individually. Also, large amount of hardware leads to high CapEx and OpEx.

Yet, all these issues are completely resolved by hyperconverged IT infrastructure approach. Hyperconverged infrastructures (HCI) consolidate compute, storage, and networking resources within a single “building block”. HCI completely resolves the management complexity problem by leaving the “separate components – separate management” approach behind. You simply manage your VMs or applications, instead of dealing with each component individually, while the infrastructure does the rest for you. Ultimately, hyperconvergence grants transparent scaling options, providing the ability not only to scale up by adding more drives, memory, or CPUs, but also to scale out by adding cluster nodes. Also, since there is less hardware to purchase and no proprietary hardware to maintain, CapEx and OpEx become significantly lower.

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No more physical shared storage

Why Software-Defined Storage?

Software-Defined Storage (SDS) is a design where software (instead of hardware) determines storage performance, availability, and resiliency. It provides standard x86 hardware with features that were previously available only in a SAN (i.e., deduplication, replication, snapshots, server-side caching, and log-structuring). With SDS, you can add new features through software updates, not hardware replacement.

With SDS, you can focus on applications you want to run, and all the infrastructure resources will be allocated automatically according to requirements you set. SDS saves both your time and effort since there is no more need to manage hypervisor, storage, and networking separately.

What is more, SDS makes it easier to build solutions that fit a job by allowing you to switch from proprietary to commodity components. Thus, you get a broader choice of components that are well proven and give you better flexibility. At the end of the day, you really get what you want and not what some vendor is forcing you to buy.

Did software-defined storage pique your interest?

Flash Is About Cost-Effectiveness

Why All-Flash Exactly?

As you may (or may not) know, StarWind has recently announced that its StarWind HyperConverged Appliance model line will come as All-Flash only, beginning with March 2020. There are no ulterior motives to this decision, it is simply a logical next step when it comes to modern balanced performance/capacity HCI solutions.

Contrary to popular belief, the difference in the lifetime cost of deploying a solution based on SSDs compared to one of the HDDs is negated by the number of hard drives you’ll have to change as you keep using the solution. StarWind HCA All-Flash offers more capacity, better performance, and higher endurance while being cost-efficient.

Our new SSD-only-based hyperconverged platform means lower risk of failure in vibration and high-shock environments or extreme temperatures because Flash has no moving parts. The $/Gb factor between 10K HDDs and RI SSDs is the same, but there’s no risk of malfunction due to mechanical wear, Flash is “greener” and infinitely more performant.

See the SSD/HDD difference for yourself —

See chart

Flexibility and Simplicity

StarWind is a one-stop virtualization shop and the only provider for full-stack datacenter infrastructure you need. StarWind products are extremely easy to use.

A typical system administrator would do the job without any special storage network (SAN/NAS) management skills.

StarWind provides all the necessary building blocks covered by StarWind ProActive Premium Support and Analytics for true Software-Defined Datacenter with its ever-changing requirements during the lifecycle:

Software-Defined Storage (SDS)
Hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI)
Storage appliances for primary and secondary (tier 2, 3, backup) purposes, Virtual Tape Library (VTL), etc.
Web Management Console to administrate StarWind infrastructure from any device anywhere in the world

StarWind products offer flexible hypervisor and OS-specific SDS choices to simplify multi-tenant configurations or during potential hypervisor switch:

Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, Red Hat KVM, Citrix XenServer
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) and VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) support
StarWind Virtual SAN acting as a main or complementing Software-Defined Storage stack

StarWind stands behind its products and provides 24/7 support for all commercial versions, including pre-sale and post-sale:

Sizing, application, and data migration services included with every appliance
An unprecedented Premium Support plan that makes the customer’s cluster StarWind’s complete responsibility
StarWind ProActive Premium Support to resolve issues before you even notice them

StarWind hardware products are the definition of “turnkey” and “plug-and-play” solutions, which only require a minimal effort from the user to run:

The appliances come pre-built, pre-configured, and pre-tested by StarWind engineering team
No specialized staff is required on the customer’s side to install and configure the appliances, everything is pre-configured to a point where you just need to plug in the power and network cables.
The Сustomer’s IT team doesn't have to sweat on solution design, components purchase, building, configuration, testing, etc., thus saving time and money

StarWind offers a variety of different management methods in order to maximize user convenience:

StarWind Management Console as a web-based tool
Command line (CLI) with PowerShell scripts, SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative Specification) plugin for Microsoft SCVMM (System Center Virtual Machine Manager) integration, VMware vCenter plugin, Swordfish
All third-party management tools are eligible for BYOL policy, so there is no overpayment

StarWind maintains Bring Your Own License (BYOL) and existing hardware repurposing policies for its hardware and software products accordingly:

Previously purchased software licenses can be reused both for StarWind and third-party software, so the customer doesn’t pay twice
StarWind software runs on COTS hardware and deploys on an existing setup that meets requirements, eliminating the need for any additional purchases
StarWind products don’t initiate a vendor lock-in and easily integrate into different infrastructures

Fault Tolerance and Performance

StarWind brings virtualization infrastructure resilience to an entirely new level by putting High Availability “on steroids” and bringing it to Fault Tolerance. StarWind ensures highest achievable performance of datacenter infrastructure without any overprovisioning.

StarWind combines Local Reconstruction Codes (LRC) with replication for performance and “resiliency on demand”, achieving an unmatched fault tolerance rate:

Local Reconstruction Codes reduce the complexity of local rebuilds
2-way and 3-way replication combined with LRC allows up to 4 disk failures or 1 node and 1 disk failure inside a single fault domain
There is never a Single Point of Failure in hardware or software

StarWind utilizes “Grid Architecture” to build immensely fault tolerant clusters with a pretty unique high redundancy rate:

Better resiliency than with typical redundancy configurations like N+1 or N+2, which put the entire cluster down after two or three failures
Grid architecture allows the cluster to remain operational even after multiple disk or multiple node failures, which is perfect for multi-workload cases like, for example, VDI, when a part of the cluster working makes a difference
“Data locality” is still adhered to for higher performance

StarWind supports backup “last resort” Disaster Recovery activities to ensure data safety even in case of complete destruction of the main on-site infrastructure:

StarWind appliances optionally contain a cloud gateway that provides transparent data offload to a public cloud like Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure
StarWind features resource-aware asynchronous replication for backup data
StarWind offers VTL to accelerate backup process for those who are bound by regulatory requirements to use a tape backup or plan to use a “tape in cloud”

StarWind maintains the principle of “Data Locality” to get the maximum possible IOPS out of the existing setup:

Compute and storage resources of every application are kept on the same (preferred) nodes when possible to avoid unnecessary network traffic
Caches are local, so even less data goes through the slower fabrics
Data locality also reduces network latency, because storage stack I/O is faster than network I/O

StarWind uses Log-Structuring and sophisticated multi-tiered caching to solve the typical performance degradation issues:

Random writes are completely negated by Log-Structuring, avoiding “I/O blender” effect
Reads are accelerated, thanks to extensive use of local flash caching
Distributed DRAM and flash caching reduces the amount of local disk subsystem I/O

StarWind can utilize the ultra-performing all-flash, NVMe, and all-NVMe designs, high-bandwidth fabrics, and RDMA technology to boost performance even further:

RDMA-capable protocols are supported: iSCSI/iSER, NVMe over Fabrics (NVMf), SMB3 (SMB Direct)
MLC or SLC flash can be used as a primary storage or cache
Along with regular 1-10 GbE, StarWind utilizes 25/50/100 GbE and 40/56 Gb InfiniBand interconnect fabrics

Cost Reduction and Planning

StarWind is cost efficient to the extreme, up to being completely free, and serves a wide range of customers, including the most budget-conscious ones.

All StarWind products are covered with a single “support umbrella” fixing any arising issues in the shortest terms. Besides, StarWind leverages StarWind ProActive Premium Support to resolve issues before you even notice them:

All our products come with a complete set of industry-standard support services, making StarWind your unified point of support
Our Support Team will contact you in the shortest possible time to fix any issues, or prevent them with StarWind ProActive Premium Support
We provide you with recommendations on improving your environment based on metrics monitored by StarWind ProActive Premium Support

StarWind products feature a minimalistic hardware footprint, requiring much less expensive componentry for the same performance and fault-tolerance:

There are no strict requirements for SAS, RDMA, SSD, or other Enterprise-grade tech
StarWind products generally need fewer nodes for the same workload, with the minimum FT configuration consisting of two nodes
There are no overpriced proprietary components, StarWind runs on Commercial Off-The-Shelf hardware

StarWind provides versatile payment methods to reduce capital expenses (CapEx) or completely eliminate them by turning into operational expenses (OpEx):

Installment plan allows the customer to balance datacenter infrastructure expenditure with revenues
Leasing does not give the user the ultimate rights for the product, but entirely eliminates CapEx
StarWind products are based on commodity hardware, so they cost less than the typical solutions in general

StarWind maintains Bring Your Own License (BYOL) and existing hardware repurposing policies with most of its products, allowing the customer to reuse his hardware or software:

BYOL for software components in StarWind hardware products
StarWind software products have flexible hardware requirements and will work on the existing setup
Management tools are eligible for BYOL policy, while StarWind native ones come for free

GUARANTEED BENEFITS FOR YOU

Flexibility and Simplicity
Fault Tolerance and Performance
Cost Reduction and Planning

Flexibility and Simplicity

StarWind is a one-stop virtualization shop and the only provider for full-stack datacenter infrastructure you need. StarWind products are extremely easy to use.
A typical system administrator would do the job without any special storage network (SAN/NAS) management skills.

Software-Defined Storage (SDS)
Hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI)
Storage appliances for primary and secondary (tier 2, 3, backup) purposes, Virtual Tape Library (VTL), etc.
Web Management Console to administrate StarWind infrastructure from any device anywhere in the world

StarWind products offer flexible hypervisor and OS-specific SDS choices to simplify multi-tenant configurations or during potential hypervisor switch:

Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, Red Hat KVM, Citrix XenServer
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) and VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) support
StarWind Virtual SAN acting as a main or complementing Software-Defined Storage stack

StarWind stands behind its products and provides 24/7 support for all commercial versions, including pre-sale and post-sale:

Sizing, application, and data migration services included with every appliance
An unprecedented Premium Support plan that makes the customer’s cluster StarWind’s complete responsibility
StarWind ProActive Premium Support to resolve issues before you even notice them

StarWind hardware products are the definition of “turnkey” and “plug-and-play” solutions, which only require a minimal effort from the user to run:

The appliances come pre-built, pre-configured, and pre-tested by StarWind engineering team
No specialized staff is required on the customer’s side to install and configure the appliances, everything is pre-configured to a point where you just need to plug in the power and network cables.
The Сustomer’s IT team doesn't have to sweat on solution design, components purchase, building, configuration, testing, etc., thus saving time and money

StarWind offers a variety of different management methods in order to maximize user convenience:

StarWind Management Console as a web-based tool
Command line (CLI) with PowerShell scripts, SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative Specification) plugin for Microsoft SCVMM (System Center Virtual Machine Manager) integration, VMware vCenter plugin, Swordfish
All third-party management tools are eligible for BYOL policy, so there is no overpayment

StarWind maintains Bring Your Own License (BYOL) and existing hardware repurposing policies for its hardware and software products accordingly:

Previously purchased software licenses can be reused both for StarWind and third-party software, so the customer doesn’t pay twice
StarWind software runs on COTS hardware and deploys on an existing setup that meets requirements, eliminating the need for any additional purchases
StarWind products don’t initiate a vendor lock-in and easily integrate into different infrastructures

Success Stories

We are satisfied with StarWind. The support is really fantastic. Whenever any issue arises, the response is very prompt, and solution is immediate.

Srinivas Kouda, Company’s Representative

We were able to build 2-node storage clusters based on virtualization in 19 hypermarkets without any problems and with high cost-efficiency.

Vass Sandor, IT Infrastructure Leader

By being able to virtualize our environment with StarWind, we were able to retire some old hardware, get our services highly available, reduce power consumption and heat in our server closet.

David Gardner, Information Systems Manager

StarWind got us off the clustered environment, which was a big help. So, I could regain control of my storage and reclaim and redistribute the space we desperately needed.

Ryan Fulton, Company’s Representative

Price + Simplicity. StarWind vSAN offers great pricing and allows us to get work done without expensive custom hardware. It also makes getting back online quick and easy after an outage or hardware failure.

Aaron Hayes, IT Manager

We chose StarWind Mainly because of the cost compared to other vendors. Simplicity of setup was also a major factor and I like the fact that you don’t need a vendor certified engineer to perform the installation.

John Harris, Windows System Administrator,
Department of Physics, University of Oxford

Because of recommendations of older colleagues, with StarWind, we got a reliable storage with no additional hardware. There was a need to increase IT infrastructure performance and we saw StarWind as the most cost-effective solution.

Željko Medić, Director of IT Department

StarWind is the best storage product I have ever used! It satisfies and exceeds requirements.

Joe Gursky, Director of IT

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Beverly, MA, June 22, 2022 - StarWind pledges to donate 1% of all Net Proceeds to the charity fund 'Help People of Ukraine'. This fund provides humanitarian aid to Ukrainian citizens who have suffered the most from the ongoing Russian invasion.

Why StarWind?

Why Hyperconvergence?

Why Software-Defined Storage?

Why All-Flash Exactly?

Flexibility and Simplicity

Fault Tolerance and Performance

Cost Reduction and Planning