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Devonport High School for Girls cuts IT operational expenses (OpEx) by replacing its costly VMware-based infrastructure with StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN)

July 01, 2025
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Ian Mason-Laurence
Network Manager. Has decades of experience in educational IT, specializing in 3CX phone systems, VMware vSphere, and network administration.
Network Manager. Has decades of experience in educational IT, specializing in 3CX phone systems, VMware vSphere, and network administration.

CHALLENGE

Before deploying StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN), Devonport High School for Girls faced a significant challenge when VMware’s acquisition by Broadcom led to prohibitive price increases for support. This made its existing IT setup unsustainable.

The school needed a reliable, budget-friendly alternative with failover capabilities but struggled to find a good fit. It explored several hyperconverged solutions but required one that balanced cost, reliability, and an easy transition from VMware to a new hypervisor without disrupting daily operations.

StarWind offered the best combination of value and reliability for a 2-node failover system. We now have cost-effective and up-to-date software based on a hyperconverged solution that is easy to manage with excellent support.

Ian Mason-Laurence, Network Manager

SOLUTION

Devonport High School for Girls chose StarWind VSAN for its affordability, strong performance, and seamless VMware-to-Hyper-V migration. StarWind V2V Converter made the transition smooth, minimizing downtime and keeping operations running without disruption.

The school now has a cost-effective, easy-to- manage hyperconverged solution with strong support. If one server fails, VSAN automatically transfers virtual machines to the remaining node, ensuring no downtime. Additionally, the school saves significantly on support costs, making StarWind a practical long-term choice.

About the Company
Established in 1908, Devonport High School for Girls is a selective grammar school located in Plymouth, Devon. It specializes in languages and maintains a strong academic record, ranking among the top-performing schools in the South West of England.
Region
EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa)
Country
Great Britain
Industry
Education
Product
StarWind Virtual SAN
Inspired by Ian Mason-Laurence’s success? Want to improve business continuity for your business-critical apps and services?
Dmytro Malynka StarWind Virtual SAN Product Manager
We’ve got you covered! StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) is specifically designed to provide highly-available shared storage for Hyper-V, vSphere, and KVM clusters. With StarWind VSAN, simplicity is key: utilize the local disks of your hypervisor hosts and create shared HA storage for your VMs. Interested in learning more? Book a short StarWind VSAN demo now and see it in action!