October 11th, 2019 by StorageReview Enterprise Lab
StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Review
StarWind offers a line of Microsoft Windows based HyperConverged Appliances (HCA) designed to meet the needs of SMBs and other use cases that are generally budget constrained. Their portfolio includes 20 unique solutions which fall into three broad model lines the HCA All-Flash, HCA Hybrid, and HCA Disk. The All-Flash is designed for small and mid-size SMB virtualized environments and this configuration provides the best performance. The Hybrid models are built to deliver high storage capacity and great performance without having to go all-flash. Additionally, the Hybrid models utilize automated storage tiering to handle performance-intensive workloads in a cost-efficient manner. This platform offers a balance between performance and cost. The Disk models are built to provide high storage capacity and moderate compute power for capacity-hungry applications. This is a high capacity option with the best cost per GB value.
September 27th, 2019 by Brian Beeler
VDI Using Scale Computing and Leostream: VDI for the Rest of Us
Modern virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) has been with us for over 15 years, and over these many years we have seen it implemented in medical and financial enterprises, educational institutions, call centers and other organizations that need secure desktops that can be accessed from any location with a network connection. A major drawback of VDI solutions is that they can be complicated to implement, manage, and maintain; furthermore, due to its specialized nature, VDI may require a dedicated, specialized staff. Due to these reasons, use of VDI technology has traditionally been restricted to large organizations with thousands of end users.
September 18th, 2019 by Adam Armstrong
VMware nanoEDGE A Small, Low Cost SDDC
.jpg)
VMware solves big issues. When one thinks of compact VMware it is usually in terms of a vSAN ReadyNode that is some form of rackmount server. There are instances where VMware can solve an issue but there is a need for minimal infrastructure. A Principal Systems Engineer and member of the Office of the CTO Global Field, Simon Richardson, saw these issues emerging for his retail customers and help develop the compact VMware solution in nanoEDGE.
September 13th, 2019 by StorageReview Enterprise Lab
Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN630 VMware vSAN Review
Western Digital launched the Ultrastar DC SN630 in February of this year, as part of a refresh and rebranding of their Ultrastar line (formerly HGST) of data center drives. Within this portfolio Western Digital has several enterprise NVMe SSD offerings with the SN200 taking the throne as the performance leader and the new SN630 replaces the SN620 in the mainstream single port NVMe space, which is an increasingly popular alternative to SATA and SAS SSDs. The SN630, which is Western Digital's workhorse NVMe SSD comes tuned either for read-centric workloads or high-endurance mixed-use workloads. The drive construction in either case is the same, the functional difference in the level of overprovisioning that goes into the drive, which in turn produces the desired endurance rating.
September 11th, 2019 by StorageReview Enterprise Lab
Microsoft Azure Stack HCI Review (DataON HCI-224 with Intel Optane NVMe)
So far we’ve dived deep into the Microsoft Azure Stack HCI, the on-premise implementation of Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. Azure Stack HCI can be seen as a best-of-both-worlds type of platform. It has all the management tools from Azure like Azure Monitor, Azure Security Center, Azure Update Management, Azure Network Adapter, and Azure Site Recovery, while housing the data on-prem and meeting certain regulations. Azure Stack HCI is broken down into three parts: software defined architecture, Azure services, and hardware.
August 30th, 2019 by Brian Beeler
Microsoft Azure Stack HCI for the Edge (2-Node HCI)
In a previous article we looked at the implementation of Microsoft Azure Stack HCI on DataON hardware. DataON is an Intel premier partner and Microsoft certified hardware vendor that has been integrating Microsoft solutions for the past 20 years to provide enterprises with turnkey Microsoft solutions. In this article we look at a specific implementation of the Microsoft Azure Stack HCI; a two-node cluster (2NC). Read more
August 28th, 2019 by Adam Armstrong
VMworld 2019 News Bits
Our News Bits is a roundup that typically covers news pieces that are just small in content, not in impact. This gives content room to breathe even if it comes in less than what we normally cover. This week VMworld 2019 took place in San Francisco, California. While we covered the major announcements from the VMware and Dell Technologies, there were several other smaller announcements. These announcements come from vendors such as Apstra, Lightbits Labs, Cohesity, Rackspace, Supermicro, and Check Point.
August 27th, 2019 by Adam Armstrong
NetApp Announces Combined Solutions For VMware Platforms
Today at VMworld 2019, NetApp announced several new combined solutions for VMware platforms that can accelerate VMware workloads while easing the ability to run applications in any environment. These include a new virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution, NetApp HCI for VDI with VMware Horizon 7 and NetApp Kubernetes Service (NKS) and NetApp HCI Implementation Services for VMware Private Cloud.
August 13th, 2019 by Adam Armstrong
VMware Announces vSAN 6.7 Update 3
Today VMware Inc. announced the upcoming update to vSAN 6.7, update 3. The update delivers container-ready infrastructure to vSAN. VMware also announced the upcoming release of vSAN Enterprise Plus Edition, a bundle of vSAN Enterprise and vRealize Operations Advanced licenses.
August 5th, 2019 by Adam Armstrong
Western Digital Announces Two New Ultrastar Storage Server Platforms
Today at FMS 2019, Western Digital announced two new server platforms, the Ultrastar Serv24-4N four-node NVMe all-flash, and the Ultrastar Serv24+6 hybrid storage server platforms. The company builds off of its proven track record to provide customer with these new building blocks for high-performance, data-intensive software-defined storage (SDS), hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), and edge environments.