With the help of StarWind, we created a solution that went from the one basket one handle ESXi VM solution (one VM Host, one SAN), to a fully redundant Windows Hyper-V Cluster with fully redundant StarWind Virtual SAN’s at a cost less than a single hardware based SAN device that would have fit our storage needs. They designed servers that met the needs for our current and future environment without the waste of one size fits all providers like Dell and HP.
Chris Sprague, Network Specialist, Poquoson City Public Schools
PROBLEM
Chris Sprague, Network Specialist for Poquoson City Public Schools (PCPS), was facing some real challenges in the spring of 2010. Tasked with limited budget and the goal of achieving a fully redundant infrastructure of virtualized servers and storage as quickly as possible across his split campus environment of four schools, he wasn’t happy with what he was hearing from the big multi-national firms. Working on his new Ace Vision 6AT Series workstation, he suddenly realized that the answer was staring up from his fingertips.
SOLUTION
Chris contacted Barry Weinstein (Aprisa Technology LLC, his ACE hardware reseller) and Marc Fertik (Director, Ace Computers) to discuss his need to migrate off an old SAN, and working together with detailed support from Daniel Arendt (Technical Manager at Ace Computers) a StarWind Virtual SAN idea emerged. PCPS intended to transition the district in stages (West Campus and then the East Campus).
About the company
Poquoson City Public Schools Located just north of Langley Air Force Base, in the Newport News/Hampton, Virginia area of the state, Poquoson City Schools are dedicated to providing excellence in education, to empower all students to develop their full potential, to lead lives of meaning and purpose, and to become contributing members of their ever-changing local and global communities through a sustained commitment to education in a respectful, safe and caring environment.
www.poquoson.k12.va.us
Industry
Education
Environment
4X Virtual hosts (Hyper-V)
(2 Clustered per campus)
4X SAN nodes (16TB each)
(2 Clustered per campus)
Business Benefits
Cost-effective HA SAN solution that is scalable, easy to deploy and configure, increased application and data availability.