vSphere Storage appliance vs 2x Win Servers + Starwind

Software-based VM-centric and flash-friendly VM storage + free version

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lohelle
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Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:25 pm

I'm thinking of using 2 x Starwind servers on a 2-node HA cluster in stead of the vSphere Storage Appliance that the customer have planned.
I would think the Starwind approach would be safer AND give better performance ? I do not trust the VSA, and Starwind trouble will be much easier to troubleshoot I think.

Any thoughts?
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anton (staff)
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Wed Jan 23, 2013 11:17 pm

Havind stand-alone storage servers with a 2-way replica is safer as you can have 2 nodes (hypervisor and storage) being down with whole cluster still being up.
Something VSA cannot do (unless pure 3-way replica deployed).

We'll release own VSA for VMware pretty soon so you'll be able to select from both implementations.

P.S. Actually running storage virtualization stack side-by-side with VM hypervisor has it's benefits.
lohelle wrote:I'm thinking of using 2 x Starwind servers on a 2-node HA cluster in stead of the vSphere Storage Appliance that the customer have planned.
I would think the Starwind approach would be safer AND give better performance ? I do not trust the VSA, and Starwind trouble will be much easier to troubleshoot I think.

Any thoughts?
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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lohelle
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Thu Jan 24, 2013 8:22 am

This is on a boat, and the available space is only 2U (+ power/cooling limitations)
So 2 x virtual SW SANs is the best option with the limited options I think. :)
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anton (staff)
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Thu Jan 24, 2013 11:39 am

It's not the smallest device with the smallest space :)
lohelle wrote:This is on a boat, and the available space is only 2U (+ power/cooling limitations)
So 2 x virtual SW SANs is the best option with the limited options I think. :)
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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Max (staff)
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Thu Jan 24, 2013 12:52 pm

Consider water cooling in this case, your benefit is the biggest heatsink in the world :)
I would vote for StarWind, but we need just a little bit more time until we're ready with the VSA.
Just curious: why is Hyper-V not a fit for this task?
Max Kolomyeytsev
StarWind Software
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lohelle
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Thu Jan 24, 2013 1:24 pm

vSphere is company policy.. :)
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anton (staff)
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Thu Jan 24, 2013 4:35 pm

No big deal.

I can fix that too! (c) ...
lohelle wrote:vSphere is company policy.. :)
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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