@scottalanmiller said in KVM vs XenServer:
Like your management layer or storage layer. Like if you want DRBD or Starwind, you bring your own. Or if you want a GUI or whatever on top.
Yup. We might consider brining in if not native Linux version than something being KVM or Xen native.
@Mike-Davis said in Home Lab Hypervisor?:
Hyper-V. It's what I have been rolling for production so it only makes sense to have it in my lab so I can test stuff.
This is very correct approach IMHO.
@BBigford said in For the love of IPOD...:
@dafyre said in For the love of IPOD...:
@DustinB3403 said in For the love of IPOD...:
Better yet. . .
"If they can afford 1 SAN, they can certainly afford 2, and make things truly solid". . .
that would be commission + just good IT.
Of course horrible finance control, but whatever.... with just a single SAN its still horrible finance control.
Would it not be a good time to start pitching better setups such as Starwinds Appliances?
Funny... I actually did bring that up, and was told since nobody has heard of them, then they probably weren't very good. I thought they were joking, but they weren't.
Who told that? Competitor? 
@Tim_G said in Accelerate your backups with StarWind Virtual Tape Library and Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager:
Everything on the StarWind VTL side is great. It was quick and easy to install. I installed it on Hyper-V Server 2016, and it went flawlessly. I was able to remotely connect to and manage the VTL without issue across two sites.
The more time consuming parts was setting up SCDPM. But it's Microsoft, so you'll have that.
We'll simplify virtual images delivery (seed & back-seed) with the next update
@Tim_G said in Accelerate your backups with StarWind Virtual Tape Library and Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager:
@KOOLER said in Accelerate your backups with StarWind Virtual Tape Library and Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager:
@Tim_G said in Accelerate your backups with StarWind Virtual Tape Library and Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager:
I've been working on this now, actually
Mind sharing YOUR feedback / results so far?
Meanwhile StarWind VTL ...
... is going to have a major feature update announced on VeeamOn 2017 in New Orleans
So far it's going well. I've pretty much set it up in the same way as in the guide Charbel Nemnom made: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/technical_papers/virtual-tape-library-used-with-microsoft-system-center-data-protection-manager-2016.pdf
The performance is good and backup is fast. My test was with 8 LTO5 virtual tapes using 4 virtual slots. I limited the tapes to 250 GB each for testing certain things.
I also want to try having the virtual tape files living on a volume that is deduplicated. I haven't found anything that says whether or not it will work well with the StarWind VTL, or how efficient it will be... so I'm just going to try it and see what happens!
StarWind has own dedupe but it's inline and implemented to handle streaming writes for primary storage. For backup target it's absolutely OK to use Windows Server built-in dedupe. Veeam has own but it's not that good on the multiple images.
P.S. Yes, when we'll re-publish VTL as a Linux VSA (soon) we'll have dedupe issues - there's no good dedupe in Linux standard distros so far...
@Tim_G said in Accelerate your backups with StarWind Virtual Tape Library and Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager:
I've been working on this now, actually
Mind sharing YOUR feedback / results so far?
Meanwhile StarWind VTL ...
... is going to have a major feature update announced on VeeamOn 2017 in New Orleans
OK, there are good news and bad news.
Bad news: VTL is NOT included in the free version.
Good news: we'll add some LIMITED availability of it soon, just didn't;t decide on a restriction set.
Excellent news: I can give away to Tim_G an unlimited VTL license free of charge "just because" So he's welcomed to drop me a line to
anton AT starwind DOT com
...and I'll engage him with the responsible persons here to move on.
P.S. Just a link to VTL thing:
StarWind Virtual Tape Library (VTL)
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/virtual-tape-library-feature
Xfce on all the systems I use (opensuse, freebsd & netbsd)
Just for reference... To get StarWind VSAN you need to get here:
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san
Sorry I missed (messed up...) this one: Mom had a birthday so I had to attend the party Thanks to everybody who took part in AFA. Great thing BTW.
Thanks to everybody for your interest! One point so far... If you do like something about us - we're happy If you DON'T LIKE - please share. You have a great chance for your hate story to become a love story with a next release or so... Ping Max (he's StarWind VSAN Product Mgr) or me and trust me: I have a long (and full of nails) stick do deal with developers ;)))
I decided it worth providing a direct URL for the source...
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san-free
@Danp said in Import XenServer export into Scale cluster:
Would the Starwinds V2V converter work?
Yes, we love migrating Hyper-V and VMware guys to Scale/HC clusters LOL.
P.S. Just make sure you'll enable VM patching as KVM and MSFT/VMV emulated hardware is different, first VM reboot in maintenance to update the hardware is required.
@dafyre said in New StarWind Virtual SAN Free - All restrictions removed!:
I have a 2-node setup running in VirtualBox now. I whoopsied and forgot to adjust a few things in the poweshell scripts, so no real-world data yet.
The setup is easy if you follow along their Quick guide posted on the VSAN free page. It covers how to use the PowerShell scripts to set it up.
Better details tomorrow, hopefully!
Excellent! Ping me if you'd need anything (like evergreen NFR etc). Good luck!
@dafyre said in New StarWind Virtual SAN Free - All restrictions removed!:
@Tim_G said in New StarWind Virtual SAN Free - All restrictions removed!:
@scottalanmiller said in New StarWind Virtual SAN Free - All restrictions removed!:
now. I'm on.
StarWind has got it going on! They've been doing this stuff before Microsoft finally got around to implementing some of it... such as S2D and other Datacenter features.
Anyone get ahold of all the slides? I missed it... was super busy at work today.
Or how about a recording of it?
We did! We'll share content around next week.
@scottalanmiller said in New StarWind Virtual SAN Free - All restrictions removed!:
This is awesome to finally have out and official. We've been talking about it for weeks but haven't had an announcement to point to.
@kooler we should celebrate! Let's do drinks. In say... 50 hours?
yes, we'll do that! what about some nice Sicilian place around here? (LOL, at least you'll tell how local ones suck compared to italy)
P.S. Max is in game
@Breffni-Potter said in New StarWind Virtual SAN Free - All restrictions removed!:
Yes. I tried to get it. I had a call with a rep and I just got a trial. Bait la switch.
Sorry it went this way. Sales are... Well, sales. "I can fix that too!" (c) ...
@Breffni-Potter said in New StarWind Virtual SAN Free - All restrictions removed!:
@KOOLER said in New StarWind Virtual SAN Free - All restrictions removed!:
@Breffni-Potter said in New StarWind Virtual SAN Free - All restrictions removed!:
I tried to get a copy of Starwind free in the past and they were like "Here's a trial, have fun"
I don't know how you've managed to do that, free and trial were always SEPARATE download options. What did you do exactly to achieve your "here's trial etc"?
I filled in the form.
Spoke to a rep. The rep then said, here's a trial.
I asked where the free 2 node license was, was told I could not have it.
Sales reps never contact people who ask for the free stuff, but they do it for trials. My guess is a) you initially asked for trial and not for free b) you didn't mention to sale rep you're coming from MangoLassi so you can have more.
Either way, licensing policy changed completely, I'd suggest PM me your e-mail and I'll bring you in touch with somebody from SEs (no sales!!!) who'll help with a key and pain-free engagement process. That's what I can do now...
@matteo-nunziati said in New StarWind Virtual SAN Free - All restrictions removed!:
nice! still lack the HW for this, but definitively nice!
You can do that in Azure and now in Amazon w/out hardware.
https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps/starwind.starwindvirtualsan
https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B06XWNJ5DW?qid=1491493304804&sr=0-1&ref_=srh_res_product_title
@Breffni-Potter said in New StarWind Virtual SAN Free - All restrictions removed!:
I tried to get a copy of Starwind free in the past and they were like "Here's a trial, have fun"
I don't know how you've managed to do that, free and trial were always SEPARATE download options. What did you do exactly to achieve your "here's trial etc"?