The Virtual SAN standard introduced in Virtual SAN 2.0 and later versions are designed to allow physical volumes to be directly replicated in the data center into any location as part of a distributed storage service (DRS). If used to replicate VMs into a data center, you’re talking about a kind of storage pool technology. By extending VSArea to support distributed storage, Virtual SAN extends the ability of storage pool technology to any location within a data center. That means Virtual SAN is a highly effective architecture to replicate VMs across data centers.
But there’s a lot more to technology like Virtual SAN than meets the eye. The ability to replicate VMs at any data center location means there’s a lot of configuration and management work to be done, as well. Let’s take a look at this new technology and see what’s required. So what is a storage area network? And what makes StarWind so special?
What’s So New About StarWind Virtual SAN?
What is a vSAN? vSAN uses a software-defined approach that creates shared storage for virtual machines. And StarWind Virtual SAN significantly excelled in this business. StarWind vSAN is a highly reliable, easy to configure, secure, scalable, and powerful all-in-one storage solution for enterprises. StarWind Virtual SAN can scale from a single VM, up to a global scale of millions of VMs. With the help of StarWind Software Virtual SAN Manager, StarWind vSAN can be centrally managed, monitored, and integrated into Microsoft Azure. It is the best choice for your virtualization needs.
In addition to the core technology to provide storage pool replication for physical volumes, there are many other features that make StarWind Virtual SAN more than just a storage replication technology. There’s also an important new concept in Virtual SAN – the Virtual SAN Area (VSArea). Let’s have a look at these technologies and how they work.
Storage Replication in the Data Center
The core technology for storage replication is actually very well known. It’s called Storage Replication. When using replication, you can create a distributed pool of storage with one copy of the data that can be distributed across several physical or virtual locations.
What Is the Difference Between Storage Replication and StarWind Virtual SAN?
Large enterprises are anticipated to witness a significant global market for storage area network (SAN) market growth during the forecast period 2022-2027 at a 3.5% CAGR. Most storage replication solutions are focused on replicating the data from physical to virtual. This can happen across physical volumes, virtual volumes, or storage-less clouds. StarWind Virtual SAN is different. It offers a replication solution in the data center, not only across physical volumes. And that’s where the concept of the Virtual SAN Area comes in.
This isn’t just some storage replication technology – it is a storage pool technology designed to replicate physical volumes into any location as part of a distributed storage service (DRS). When comparing vSAN vs SAN, virtual SAN extends the ability of storage pool technology to any location within a data center. The ability to replicate VMs into a data center means you can replicate VMs across data centers. That means that with StarWind Virtual SAN, you don’t need to spend on buying hardware and software to run your own replication. You can benefit from the power of DRS in your own data center, without the need for replication infrastructure in your location. That’s quite a big difference.
What Are the Benefits of StarWind Virtual SAN?
In addition to the concept of having an infrastructure that is designed to replicate VMs at any location, there are several other benefits of the StarWind virtual storage area network:
- No upfront investments – StarWind Virtual SAN eliminates any capital expense required to deploy and maintain the SAN;
- No upfront storage expenditures – Instead of renting storage capacity from the data center, enterprises purchase storage capacity from StarWind directly. This enables StarWind to lower storage prices and improve data reliability and security;
- No data migration difficulties – Because StarWind Virtual SAN is built upon the StorageNet software, it can be easily adapted to any existing infrastructure. This avoids costly data migration that may take months to complete. It also frees storage admins from spending time manually reconfiguring the storage configuration and moving VMs;
- Built to scale – StarWind Virtual SAN allows enterprises to scale storage resources to the size they need. It provides an unlimited amount of storage capacity on-demand at a very competitive price. This means you can start small and grow as your needs grow;
- Built for security and compliance – StarWind Virtual SAN is the ultimate, next-generation SAN. StarWind Virtual SAN is based on the StorageNet software which provides all the required services for a SAN, such as storage clustering, storage replication, backup, and VM monitoring.
StarWind Virtual SAN provides additional features for security, compliance, and scalability. It leverages encryption to guarantee data integrity and security. All data transfers are encrypted and transmitted over the StarWind Virtual SAN. In addition, StarWind Virtual SAN delivers an optional data lifecycle management feature that allows admins to track all data movement across the cluster.
Taking into key features, StarWind Virtual SAN provides the following:
- Secure and robust storage network and infrastructure;
- StarWind Network for enterprise-grade data protection;
- Comprehensive security and policy management for compliance;
- Centralized storage administration to manage, monitor, and control all storage resources;
- Built-in scalability;
- Multi-layer data protection.
Final Say!
StarWind Virtual SAN makes it possible for you to store data and virtual machines (VMs) in the cloud. The StarWind Virtual SAN 2022 software solution is a next-generation network-attached storage (NAS) system. It includes a set of powerful new features which deliver a significant system performance. Therefore, in return for using this kind of storage technology, you get many advantages.