Starwind passed the Lab tests by VMware to became Certified Partner.
In my recent article about Starwind I reported that Starwind Free Version has got unlimited storages capacity – read here. In fact there is another interesting news about Starwind and it is that Starwind is now VMware Partner as a certified storage solution.
Actually I was not aware that Starwind was not certified by VMware, but now when the news came by, it's clear enough. Back in the past there was always a Free version of Starwind (not the case just till recently) and I use to train myself to pass my VCP exam since I did not have a dedicated SAN or NAS storage.
So it's a good news that Starwind Free version is back again with the version 5.6 and the certification as a VMware Certified Aliance Partner.
A quick quote from the announce:
We are happy to announce that starting from today StarWind Software is a VMware Certified Partner!
StarWind iSCSI SAN software has successfully passed all the laboratory tests and has met all the interoperability
criteria required by VMware.
This certification assures our customers that StarWind solution is officially compatible with VMware virtualization products and guarantees full VMware technical support for any VMware infrastructure built using StarWind iSCSI SAN.
In fact the StarWind Free iSCSI SAN offers a some cool features:
– Data Deduplication – fully supported, variable block size.
– Unlimited storage capacity & unlimited number of supported concurrent iSCSI connections.
– Full Production use is allowed.
– Caching – a multi-level cache mechanism can use gigabytes of RAM and converts it into extremely fast level 1 write-back or write-through cache.
– Continuous Data Protection and Snapshots that are completely compatible with VSS (Volume Snapshot Services).
– iSCSI boot is fully supported with iSCSI boot capable NIC
If you want to test Starwind, You don't need a server software for it. Any modern windows OS can be used and you'll have iSCSI target installed and fully operational under 5 minutes.
If you're learning and need a quick iSCSI target to test VMware VMotion or High Availability, there is no better option which has got so easy setup.
Source: Starwind
