Over the past decade, higher network bandwidths and processing power has resulted in a significant increase in the demand placed on storage requirements. Plunging storage media costs and the mission-critical nature of data have both spurred the implementation of redundant data storage, or better known as storage replication to ensure higher availability of reliability of stored data.

Another important concept which has evolved alongside storage replication is storage virtualization. Simply put, storage virtualization allows a user or an application to access a storage volume as if it were connected physically to the host computer or server, where in fact, the physical storage device is residing on a set of one or more network connected servers.

Typically, storage virtualization is achieved using one of three implementations, namely host-based, storage device based and network based. Host-based virtualization has been around in operating systems for a long time. To illustrate with a simple example, a single 2 TB hard drive can be partitioned into multiple logical or virtual drives of smaller sizes. Users and applications utilize the logical drive as if it were an actual physical storage device. The operating system or host handles and interprets the I/O requests which are translated to the physical level.

Storage device based virtualization is best explained with RAID devices where a set of physical devices can present themselves as a single abstracted storage location to the host computer or server. Besides virtualization, disk arrays can also provide cloning, snapshots and remote replication.

Network based is the third and most popular implementation of storage virtualization, and is achieved using high availability storage software. In this implementation, existing server and network resources are utilized to create networked SAN typically utilizing iSCSI or FC or Fibre Channel technologies. Fibre Channel technology requires storage servers to be connected using dedicated Fibre cabling which is expensive but guarantees high data throughput. iSCSI Storage is the more popular implementation which is also known as SCSI over IP. This technology allows organizations to leverage existing server and network infrastructure to create highly available and reliable Storage Area Networks or SANs.

StarWind Software is the developer and vendor of StarWind 5.0, an SAN Software utilizing iSCSI Storage that turns any industry-standard server into a highly reliable and highly available enterprise-class SAN or centralized storage. StarWind 5.0 works extremely well as a centralized storage system for Server applications such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Sharepoint Server or any other data-driven server application.

Additionally, StarWind 5.0 is also well suited for use in conjunction with application server virtualization platforms such as VMWare, Microsoft Hyper-V R2, creating robust, high-availability virtual servers, minimizing downtime and maximizing productivity.

On either implementation scenarios, users are provided with an entire suite of features which include Synchronous Data Mirroring, Automatic Failover, Failback with Fast Synchronization, Remote/Asynchronous Replication, CDP & Snapshots, Server Clustering and Thin Provisioning.

If you would like to maximize your IT infrastructure utilizing iSCSI Storage, StarWind 5.0 from StarWind Software is your platform of choice for high availability storage software.

To download a trial copy and to obtain additional information, visit StarWind Software.