StarWind an old flame

Not sure how long you have known me for but when I started this blog 2005/2006 I blogged about a software ISCSI solution called Starwind from a company formerly called Rocket Division (Now Starwind Software). Well the guys over there were kind of enough to give me an NFR of their product as I was going to need a ISCSI solution whilst delivering VMware training courses. VMware was just preparing to release VI3 and I knew it had better ISCSI capabilities so I needed a cheap solution fast and very cost effective. Free was a good start and I even installed it into a VM so I didn’t need hardware for my usage.

 Anyway that is history now and over the last few years Starwind has been adding more and more enterprise features to its product and even releasing a free version (wonder where they got that idea). I think it’s about time I got familiar with Starwind again. They recently added the following features:

• Host operating systems: any modern Microsoft Windows OS is supported.

• Works with all the leading Hypervisor vendors: VMware, Microsoft, VMware.

• Data De-duplication (fully supported, variable block size). Data Deduplication is a specialized mechanism of data-reduction, reducing storage capacity requirements by eliminating duplicated data within and between files.
• Unlimited storage capacity & Unlimited number of supported concurrent iSCSI connections.
• Full Production use is allowed.
• Support. Free version is covered with a basic support plan (an open public community forum). Support upgrades are available for paid per-incident plans or switching to any commercial version with extended functionality where an annual support plan is included.
• Caching. StarWind has a multi-level cache mechanism implemented. The cache can use gigabytes of RAM and converts it into to extremely fast level 1 write-back or write-through cache, providing superior storage performance over many conventional SANs.
• CDP (Continuous Data Protection) and Snapshots that are completely compatible with VSS (Volume Snapshot Services).
• VTL (Virtual Tape Library) and WAN replication are offered as paid upgrade options.
• iSCSI boot is fully supported with iSCSI boot capable NIC.

If you are interested too then click > HERE < to find out more.