Wed Apr 13, 2011 11:07 am
<opnion>
Microsoft have finally reversed their brain-dead decision on only allowing their iSCSI target on OEM supplied Windows Storage Server, which you had to buy with hardware. It's now a free add-on to all editions of Windows Server 2008 R2. There are no license restrictions - you can use it an a commercial production environment.
The Microsoft target is quite limited compared to Starwind, but it is free, and it does come from Microsoft. It's going to turn a lot more people on to iSCSI.
I think Starwind Free should match it in terms of being just as easy for anyone to get hold of, and matching it feature for feature, while also giving a taste of what the paid for versions of can do. So I would suggest:
* unlimited (in number and capacity) basic IMG targets - this will match the bulk of what Microsoft iSCSI can do
* all other features (e.g. mirroring, HA, dedupe etc - limit to one target of each type, and limit the capacity of each target to say, 100GB or so)
This will really help promote Starwind, and enable everyone to test out the advanced features without having a time limit or licensing restrictions. As soon as they really need to deploy an advanced feature they will need to license more capacity/targets.
</opinion>
