Microsoft SQL Server is the backbone of many businesses, but when it comes to high availability, which path should you take: Always On Availability Groups (AG) or Failover Cluster Instances (FCI)?
Microsoft SQL Server is the backbone of many businesses, but when it comes to high availability, which path should you take: Always On Availability Groups (AG) or Failover Cluster Instances (FCI)?
Security, privacy, and performance have always been a priority for many businesses even over the limitless scalability offered by the cloud. Join us for a new video, on how to transform two on-prem VMware vSphere hosts into a bulletproof high-availability (HA) cluster for improved cost-effectiveness, high VM performance and enhanced security, in 5 easy steps.
Want to optimize your storage infrastructure? Learn how StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) helps organizations achieve high availability and resilience.
Worried about keeping your business data safe from ransomware and other threats? Discover how StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) can fortify your backup strategy as a hardened repository for Veeam Backup & Replication (B&R).
Most admins know that VMware offers Free and Evaluation versions of their hypervisor. However, there are still some nuances that explain why people would actually buy ESXi.
V2V in Focus: What’s virtual-to-virtual migration all about? Learn what V2V is, why it matters, and how it works. Check out reasons for migration, hot vs. cold migration, and tools like StarWind V2V Converter.
VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V are among the most popular type 1 enterprise hypervisors. However, their VM formats are incompatible, and it is not uncommon for users to look for an easy way to migrate a virtual machine from one hypervisor to another.
It is the second part of my research on SQL Server Availability Groups (AG) and SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) performance. Before, I measured SQL Server AG performance on Storage Spaces (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/hyper-v/can-sql-server-failover-cluster-instance-run-s2d-twice-fast-sql-server-availability-groups-storage-spaces-part-1-studying-ag-performance/). Today, I study the performance of SQL Server FCI on S2D, trying to prove that this thing can run 2 times faster than SQL Server AG on Storage Spaces
It’s usually quite a chore to manage file servers by using VMs. Migrating between file servers in the cloud, enacting replication with DFS-R, and such would require using redundancy mechanisms. All this makes the implementation of file servers in Azure unnecessarily complex. Well, that ship has finally sailed!
When people think “cybersecurity,” images will be the last thing to come to mind. Usually, users tend to focus on things like cyber-attacks, viruses, or malware. Well, regular images, depending on where they come from, their integrity, and the routing can become a micro-gap in your security which can then result in a breach.
Veeam Backup and Replication 10 has just recently been released, and one of its more exciting features is the ability to back up a NAS. The latter is frequently used for diverse workloads, which include huge amounts of unstructured data. It’s often served chaotically, and it’s in a risk of being lost if there’s no specific fast redundancy mechanism in place.
Each new VMware vSphere release introduces new features and functions in addition to fixing the drawbacks that may have been in the previous version. With each new one, you need to upgrade VMware Tools in all your VMs and check if you need to upgrade their VM compatibility, otherwise they won’t have access to the desired perks.
Bypassing conjunctions with public networks is easier said than done. Especially, if your endpoints are in faraway regions or even have different tenants, keeping the bandwidth high and cybersecurity tight can be an issue. Microsoft introduced Azure Private Link specifically for that reason, allowing users to create private endpoints within their virtual network.
As an admin, I’m fully aware that while working with the virtual infrastructures, plan A doesn’t always relay a guarantee, so you have to have plan B up your sleeve. Microsoft Hyper-V Replica inbuilt technology is a massive help in a lot of cases. If you want to find out more about why exactly this technology is a life-saver in the matters of Hyper-V disaster recovery, look it up here.
Content delivery networks (CDN) cover a set of network servers distributed across farther areas. The idea is to have point-of-presence (POP) servers in edge locations. That way, you can cache your web application content in designated servers to have your users enjoy it at high bandwidth. Azure CDN is one such tool that can help you with that.
Using containers to host software processes or applications is starting to become more of a thing. They have the necessary binary code, executables, configuration files, and libraries but without the OS images. They’re lightweight, portable, have a more consistent operation. One has to start somewhere, and AZK is a great container orchestrator to help you with that.
As any other admin, you know that the VMs eventually start to suffer from disruptions, performance problems, or simply stop responding. That is a fact of life, unfortunately. Chances are, as a virtualization engineer, you’ve probably already met these problems at least once. And since the virtualized environment is quite a complicated system, there can be too many different reasons or factors that impact poor VM performance. Trying to find out what is wrong can take a lot of your time.