Starwind Software just released new version of popular iSCSI SAN software. After several months in the beta, the product is finally available to the public. Starwind Native SAN for Hyper-V 5.8 has been officially released.
The Starwind Native SAN for Hyper-V enables you to leverage the local disks present in your Windows servers and create shared storage. By having shared storage with at least 2 nodes, you can easily put in place High Availability and live migration.
As for minimum system requirements, you'll need a server with at least 4 gigs of RAM and Gigabit NICs. Raid 5,6 or 10 can be used. As for the hard drives present in the system, it will basically depends on the server itself, but SATA, SAS or SSD's are supported.
What is new in this release?
– Global Deduplication: size of archives reduced by 80%
– Instant VM recovery: single-click VM restore
– Sandbox mode: launch of VM directly from archive for test
– Agentless architecture: no VM downtime for software installation or backup operation
Full list of What's new features: 
What's New in v5.8
You can compare the different versions of Starwind SAN at this page here.
If you're looking for an inexpensive, but at the same time reliable and highly available shared storage to enjoy virtualization with Microsoft Hyper-V, you might want to register for a Free Webminar with Starwind.
Register for this webinar to learn more about StarWind Native SAN for Hyper-V that runs on a primary Hyper-V partition, delivers all shared storage benefits using only 2 existing Hyper-V hosts, and gives you a full control of Live Migration and High Availability without additional costs and complexity. You can learn more about this new release by going and registering for Free webminar. Here is the link:
The Anatomy of a Native SAN for Hyper-V with StarWind
And bellow, find the full press release:
The cheapest way to run Hyper-V. The cheapest way to backup Hyper-V
Burlington, MA – February 14, 2012 – StarWind Software Inc., an innovative SAN software provider for iSCSI storage, announced today the release of a new StarWind Native SAN for Hyper-V v5.8.
StarWind Native SAN for Hyper-V is now enhanced by a powerful Backup and Restore tool. Backup Plug-in has agentless architecture, stores archives in Hyper-V native VHD format, makes instant VM recovery, and allows verification of backups in Sandbox. Backup Plug-in is integrated into the StarWind Centralized Management Console and it enables customers to manage backup and storage from a single window.
StarWind Native SAN for Hyper-V delivers advanced Global Deduplication technology that eliminates duplicated data and provides maximum disk space savings.
StarWind Native SAN for Hyper-V v5.8 is also improved with a new version of HA plug-in. Now, it allows the use of several network interfaces for synchronization and Heartbeat channel, and also provides automatic HA device synchronization after both nodes were down.
“Customers who have already deployed Microsoft Hyper-V, or intending to do so, now have an excellent opportunity to ensure absolute protection of their data with HA shared storage and VM backup designed by StarWind,” saidArtem Berman, Chief Executive Officer of StarWind Software, Inc. “This solutions is truly cost-effective and that’s why it ideally suits SMBs who want to enjoy all virtualization benefits.”
Source: Starwindsoftware
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