Infrastructure: Commodity Hardware

Flexibility meets cost-efficiency. Avoid vendor lock-in and lower TCO with commodity servers and components.

Intro: 

Whether you are planning to implement hyperconverged or converged architecture, the question arises – what hardware should you use for each case?  

Problem: 

Most solutions on the market are either prebuilt on specific hardware, leaving you with little to no customization options, or they come with a strict list of recommended hardware platforms. This often leads to higher overall costs, a limited lifespan for the solution, and expensive maintenance. Additionally, some solutions limit your ability to scale by locking you to specific components (such as drives, network adapters, storage controllers) with specific “vendor-approved” firmware. 

With ever-changing vendor policies, not only do you become vendor-locked, but it also becomes very difficult to track and maintain the list of available hardware components. 

Solution: 

StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) is completely hardware-agnostic, meaning it is not dependent on specific hardware. This allows you to use commodity servers, server components, and networking equipment, giving you full control over the hardware you use for building your IT infrastructure.  

Additionally, StarWind VSAN allows you to reuse existing hardware, reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) and avoiding vendor lock-in. This flexibility enables you to scale as needed and use the enterprise-grade components you prefer. 

Conclusion: 

Implementing StarWind Virtual SAN on commodity hardware significantly decreases CapEx, OpEx, and TCO for the entire cluster. It ensures fast and easy maintenance and re-provisioning while keeping your IT infrastructure components at the cutting edge of technology.