Energy Trust of Oregon ensures uninterrupted operations by deploying a 2-node high availability cluster with StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN)

CHALLENGE

Before deploying StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN), Energy Trust of Oregon faced operational challenges with its standalone Dell PowerEdge servers hosting VMs. These servers relied on local storage or SAS-connected DAS devices like Dell PowerVault ME. Managing these hosts proved difficult, particularly for scheduling downtime, as
VMs had to be manually migrated to alternate hosts. Also, hardware failures caused significant downtime while restoring VMs from backups.

While considering a move to high availability (HA), traditional solutions like Windows HA introduced added complexities and potential points of failure. The organization sought a cost-effective, simpler, and more resilient solution for its IT infrastructure.

The StarWind VSAN 2-node option allows for much simpler maintenance on devices and provides much more resilience against a single-node failure.

IT Engineer

SOLUTION

Energy Trust of Oregon chose StarWind VSAN as it allowed deploying a 2-node HA cluster using its existing Dell PowerEdge servers. This setup eliminated the need for manual VM migrations during server maintenance by enabling seamless failover between nodes. With StarWind VSAN, VMs remain operational even during sudden server failures.

Unlike competitors, StarWind’s solution allowed Energy Trust of Oregon to avoid the high costs and constraints of closed-box HCI systems. The new setup significantly reduced administrative overhead and improved infrastructure resilience, making future expansion plans more manageable.