StarWind SAN & NAS is an HCL-certified software-defined shared storage for VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V. The solution also enables the user to repurpose servers into certified backup targets if they are using Veeam. StarWind SAN & NAS, as a Linux-based VM, leverages all the features of ZFS to ensure optimal storage use, data safety and integrity. The solution is designed to present a unified,…
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VMware vSAN
Score 9.1 out of 10
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VMware vSAN is an enterprise-class storage virtualization software that provides a simple path to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and multi cloud. VMware vSAN is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.
For companies wanting a lean 2 node HC cluster Starwind VSAN is the way to go. Performance, ease of setup, reliability, and management are very good. However, If companies have more than 2 node-setups Starwind isn't the best option as it only does mirrors. Having more than 2 nodes essentially means wasting 2/3 of storage capacity. If StarWind can add distributed raids in future releases that would be perfect
vSAN is well suited for any application that can run in Virtual Environment. vSAN serves better for VDI, NSX, and vSphere on Cloud solutions. vSAN is a good fit for small and medium business companies. vSAN can't be a good solution where you have Oracle Solaris or IBM power systems. vSAN can't provide storage space using FCP protocol.
VMware runs VSAN certification programs to make sure the OEM sells validated nodes. It helps customers to select appropriate certified ready nodes like Lenovo ThinkAgile VX which comes factory configured and easy to set up.
Hyperconverged solutions reduce real estate space and networking costs when compare with shared storage. The host overhead also less.
Supports All-Flash (SATA and NVMe SSDs) and Hybrid vSAN with HDD and SSD. So customers can choose cost-effective solutions appropriate to their workloads.
Supports different storage policies, RAID and duplication, and compression features and it makes a complete storage solution.
It would be nice to have fabric-based storage acceptance to disaggregate storage and expand beyond the node concept. The assumption that increased storage needs require increased compute or ram is simply not true.
The licensing costs are high but you do get what you pay for.
Deploying and configuring VSAN is a relatively simple process for people that are already used to working in virtual environments, primarily for those that are familiar with vSphere. The compatibility of those two products is amazing. You shouldn't really encounter any issues and if you do, you surely did something wrong.
Support is (as always forVMware) top notch and easy to work with. The majority of computer companies are outsourcing their tech staff, and it seems they do as well. But their guys know the product well and are quick to respond to your ticket (if the severity is right!).
Overall the combination is really doing great and helping the business to perform smoothly. The main reason behind selecting StarWind is, It's budget-friendly, has good support and it's great product functionalities.
VMWare stand out compared to all the products. However, it is worthwhile mentioning the following products can be used to achive similar results. Hitachi Virtual Storage Systems Nutanix Cloud Infrastrucure. In case if we are using Nuatinux at the Hypervisor level then it would be recommended to use their very own product for storage virtulization even though the vendors say that all their products are cross platform supportable. However, during tests we have found high performance when using same products accross virtualization.
Even though we have had one host disk failure on one of the cluster nodes, there was no interruption to our users. The server was repaired and the StarWind SAN & NAS made the transition very simple.
There has been zero downtime since the StarWind SAN & NAS was implemented.,
The ROI for VMware vSAN seems very positive. We have yet to need to upgrade since we put it in a few years ago, but without the heavy cost of dedicated storage, we have already seen reduced hardware maintenance costs and reduced management time spent.
With the cost of dedicated storage and its separate maintenance costs, all this is rolled back into the hosts. The hosts cost more with drives in them, but not near as much as the separate dedicated storage did.
Before VMware vSAN, you had hosts and storage devices aging out, running out of capacity, or underperforming. With vSAN you only have to worry about the hosts.
