Garland Power & Light have built a high performing shared storage with StarWind Virtual SAN

CHALLENGE

Before deploying StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN), Garland Power & Light ran part of its production on a Dell PowerEdge FX2 modular chassis comprised of two blades and two storage sleds. Their existing infrastructure lacked the flexibility and performance needed to support simultaneous access by multiple compute nodes. This limitation hindered their operational efficiency and posed challenges in scaling their IT environment.

The inability to create a virtual storage pool brought about difficulties ensuring high availability (HA) for their critical applications. So, they needed a solution to deliver shared storage in a compute and storage separated scenario.

Thanks to StarWind, we were able to take 2 storage sleds, replicate the data to each other, and present to the blades as a VSAN. So far, everything has been solid.”

Jeff Ward, Sr. System Administrator

SOLUTION

Garland Power & Light selected StarWind VSAN because it enabled them to build a virtual storage pool capable of being accessed by both compute nodes simultaneously. StarWind VSAN provided a high-performing and reliable shared storage solution that seamlessly integrated with their existing infrastructure. This allowed Garland Power & Light to achieve the desired flexibility and performance without the need for significant hardware overhauls.

Thanks to StarWind VSAN, the GP&L IT department managed to create the replication network to the blades using just direct links.