StarWind Turn a Microsoft Windows machine into iSCSI Target appliance!
StarWind (see presentation) is an advanced, full-featured software-only iSCSI Target for Microsoft Windows (both commercial and free versions). StarWind enables anyone to quickly install and configure an IP SAN solution that delivers immediate benefits allowing storage to be consolidated, virtualized and centrally managed. StarWind (commercial edition) is an ideal choice for any sized business.
StarWind is a hardware-independent, cost-effective and scalable storage management solution that enables the benefits of Storage Area Networking such as enhanced disaster recovery and increased regulatory compliance and does not consume additional resources on application servers. StarWind does not require any additional hardware, it utilizes the existing Ethernet and IP network infrastructure and leverages existing storage hardware.
StarWind’s volume snapshot feature allows simple scheduled or on-demand snapshots of critical data for backup. If necessary all backed up data can be retrieved at once, or individual files can be retrieved as needed. StarWind’s unique ability to virtualize and share physical storage hardware also eliminates the need to have an expensive DLT, AIT or LTO tape or high-capacity Blu-Ray or HD-DVD burner.
Key Benefits:
Storage Management: StarWind is network data and storage menagement software which enables you to organize storage management system in the very efficient way whether it s disaster recovery solution or mini storage management systems.
Storage Consolidation: Consolidate all storage in the server room to increase application “up time” and simplify administration. The entire storage pool can be centrally managed eliminating the need to separately maintain “islands” of disks. It’s also possible to completely remove all hard disks from client machines (boot from SAN) using an iSCSI HBAs or a software-only iSCSI boot solution, dramatically lowering network TCO and IT administration expenses.
Disaster Recovery and Backups: Microsoft VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Services) compatible dynamic volume snapshots and automatic incremental backups make disaster recovery and backup initiatives a breeze, completely eliminating the need for manual backup activities. Now you can perfectly “roll-back” any volume any time.
Leverage Existing Storage: StarWind can leverage existing direct attached storage (Serial and Parallel ATA and SCSI, Fibre Channel, USB and FireWire) making it available as iSCSI storage.
Create Mirrored Fail-Safe SAN Volumes: StarWind can perfectly maintain a RAID-1 (mirror) over different physical hard disks. There’s no need for an expensive RAID controller or dedicated software RAID volume configuration.
Automatic Replication: Replicate mission-critical data to another site over a low-bandwidth connection.
Share Physical Devices: Tape drives and ultra-modern high-capacity Blu-Ray and HD-DVD burners can be shared over a standard IP network, leveraging existing tape backup and CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD burning applications allowing backups to a remotely located tape or optical media drive.
Regulatory Compliance: Reduce complexity and simplify data retention, backup and disaster recovery for compliance with regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA.
Create Media Libraries: Standard ISO images can be mounted to virtual iSCSI DVD-ROM drives creating media libraries exported via IP SAN, eliminating the need to handle physical CD/DVDs.
Outstanding Performance: StarWind iSCSI Target has a matching “domestic” iSCSI Initiator called StarPort. This combination provides unbeatable performance compared to the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator and third-party iSCSI targets.
Our SAN storage virtualization software with snapshots, data protection and mirroring functionality can be used to organize the following for an enterprise: company data protection, windows backup systems, network and volumes mirroring, remote data replication.
System Requirements:
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP (with Service Pack 2 installed)
800 MHz Intel Pentium III class processor
512 MB of RAM
50 MB of disk space for StarWind application data
Shared disk volume for Windows installation, Windows swap file, StarWind executables and StarWind iSCSI image files
Fast Ethernet connection
Recommended System Requirements:
Windows Server 2003 (with Service Pack 1 installed)
2 GHz Intel Xeon class processor
4 GB of RAM
1 GB of disk space for StarWind application data and log files
Dedicated disk volumes for Windows installation, Windows swap file, StarWind executables and StarWind iSCSI image files
Gigabit Ethernet connection
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Recent Comments