Oklahoma State University ensures 24/7 availability of critical academic systems by creating resilient shared storage with StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN)

CHALLENGE

Before deploying StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN), the Oklahoma State University College of Veterinary Medicine relied on a VMware virtualized environment, with critical workloads, including an Oracle database, running on direct attached storage. This architecture limited storage flexibility, lacked the desired disaster recovery capabilities, and prevented the organization from building resilient shared storage for its virtual machines.

The IT team required a software defined shared storage solution that could integrate seamlessly with the existing infrastructure, eliminate dependence on direct attached storage, and improve virtualization resilience.

We have to make all IT decisions on a limited budget, and StarWind made that easy.

Bradley Barnes,
 Manager of Technology Resources

SOLUTION

The Oklahoma State University College of Veterinary Medicine deployed StarWind VSAN to transform its existing Windows servers into shared iSCSI storage for its virtual infrastructure without replacing existing hardware. The software enabled approach allowed the organization to validate the solution before purchase, minimize financial risk, and reuse its existing servers and Ethernet network.

As a result, the college gained a flexible, scalable storage platform with improved disaster recovery capabilities while significantly reducing infrastructure costs and enabling future storage expansion as requirements grow.