StarWind Native SAN for Hyper-V makes your storage environment reliable and high available, utilizing only two Hyper-V servers, while other hardware and software SAN solutions require at least four physical nodes to provide the same level of fault tolerance and redundancy. It becomes possible because StarWind Native SAN for Hyper-V is a native Windows application and can coexist with Hyper-V on the same physical server easily. As a result StarWind needs half of hardware, normally needed to build a SAN (servers and network infrastructure: switches, network cards, cabling and etc.) At least ½ of the budget already allocated for the hardware could be saved for other purposes.
The two-node SAN configuration can be effectively used in virtualized server environments of SMBs because of its low cost attended by many enterprise-class features. Using the StarWind Native SAN for Hyper-V you can utilize your storage resources more efficiently, reduce downtime, protect your virtual machines and ensure faster recovery in case of a failure. This solution is an ideal choice suitable for companies with low IT budgets but still requiring high level of performance, scalability and business continuity. StarWind Software Inc. offers a very affordable product that starts generating ROI at the moment you put it into operation.
Two-host SAN versus four-host SAN: save on hardware
On Schemes 1 and 2 you can see the examples of 2- and 4-node HA infrastructures with utilized hardware. As you can see, 2-node configuration requires much less ethernet cards, no switches and only 2 servers.
Deployment
StarWind Native SAN for Hyper-V can be installed on any Windows server (Microsoft Windows Server 2008 is recommended). In order to create failover configuration two servers are used which serve as storage nodes and failover cluster nodes at the same time. This redundancy ensures High Availability and fault-tolerance of your storage on the one hand and substantially reduces costs you need to invest into creation of two-node configuration on the other hand. You don’t need to buy expensive proprietary hardware in order to create your virtual server environment. StarWind iSCSI SAN for Hyper-V will convert your existing servers into a high-performance SAN within 30 minutes. It is easy to deploy and maintain, and it is really cost-effective.
To deploy this configuration you need two virtual disks – they will act as HA devices. The process of the configuration is simple and similar for both devices, but note that the second device must dispose a sufficient size to store virtual machines.
The whole process consists of several simple steps:
Configuring StarWind Server
Configuring Windows Server
Creating cluster
Making the VM highly available
What noticeable benefits StarWind Native SAN for Hyper-V provides comparing to other solutions?
Using the StarWind iSCSI SAN solution Hyper-V administrators obtain an easy-to-use and manage, affordable, and scalable SAN that completely supports iSCSI protocol and fully protects your Hyper-V environment in case of a failure.
Two-node configuration created with StarWind iSCSI SAN for Hyper-V provides the following advantages:
Cost-effective solution
Optimization of your virtualized environment
More efficient use of resources
Higher performance
Reduction of downtime
Faster Disaster Recovery
Faster Backups
Retrieved from:-http://hyperv.starwindsoftware.com/two-node-configuration-for-hyper-v-using-starwind-iscsi-san
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