StarWind Enterprise iSCSI storages for Hyper-V

iSCSI SAN Storage Software / Application Solutions / IP SAN for MS Hyper-V / StarWind Enterprise iSCSI storages for Hyper-V

StarWind Enterprise iSCSI storages for Hyper-V

Now everybody knows that VMware is not the only option in the world of virtualization. Many users, and especially SMBs, prefer hypervisor Microsoft Hyper-V with all its capabilities and useful features obtained as a part of Windows Server 2008 R2 features.

Fault-tolerant storages based on Software StarWind Enterprise fit perfectly for SMB segment, where small investments must ensure maximum efficiency and functionality. Microsoft Hyper-V is cheaper than VMware vSphere (the product itself, not the cost of ownership), and StarWind software does not require buying expensive storage and complicated SAN equipment. We can say that Microsoft Hyper-V and StarWind SAN software are good partners in the common cause of virtualization.

You will remember that Hyper-V has its pseudo-cluster file-system, CSV (Cluster Shared Volumes), which is built on NTFS and allows using shared volumes for storing virtual machines with the support of «hot» Hyper-V migration between hosts (Live Migration) and with Failover (High Availability) support. This system is pseudo-cluster, because a node-arbitrator is selected of Hyper-V cluster nodes for CSV volumes, and this arbitrator manages the SCSI-reservations of virtual machines (the input-output itself goes directly).

In this case, the Hyper-V nodes have such an interesting feature as Dynamic I/O Redirection. This feature allows, in case of failure of a Hyper-V node’s path to an IP-SAN, to redirect its I/O through the host-arbitrator. That is, in the event of failure of all the host server’s paths to the SAN, VMs continue working on the node until they move to another node via Live Migration technology:



If failure occurs within the iSCSI SAN, then StarWind Enterprise HA comes into the game – in the event of a primary storage node failure it switches to a backup node without any downtime.



It is obvious that the situation described above with Hyper-V for Dynamic I/O Redirection, is useful only in very short list of cases – for example, if node connections to a SAN are not duplicated (yes, it happens).

We recommend using StarWind Enterprise for Hyper-V configuration, when you need a reliable and secure storage infrastructure for virtual machines.

Download Hyper-V and High Availability Shared Storage Guide:

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