StarWind Software

Hello, we are currently testing out Starwind in our lab environment. We are planning to use it for 2-node MS SQL failover clustering. I would like to know if it is acceptable/supported to have both Starwind and MSSQL installed on the same server node? So instead of having 3 servers (2x Starwind, 2x MSSQL), we will only have 2.

Thanks in advance!

Yes, absolutely supported scenario. That's the way we "workaround" need in Enterprise licenses for SQL Server AlwaysOn AG (Availability Groups). With StarWind replication you can go SQL Server Standard and AlwaysOn FCI (Failover Clustered Instances).

herman wrote:Hello, we are currently testing out Starwind in our lab environment. We are planning to use it for 2-node MS SQL failover clustering. I would like to know if it is acceptable/supported to have both Starwind and MSSQL installed on the same server node? So instead of having 3 servers (2x Starwind, 2x MSSQL), we will only have 2.

Thanks in advance!

That's great! So if we set up this way, am I right in understanding that the iSCSI initiator should point to the targets as follows (given there are 2 iSCSI target NICs per node).

Node 1:
127.0.0.1
<IP of iSCSI NIC 1 of node 2>
<IP of iSCSI NIC 2 of node 2>

Node 2:
127.0.0.1
<IP of iSCSI NIC 1 of node 1>
<IP of iSCSI NIC 2 of node 1>

Another quick question - as we are using VMware, should we use the PVSCSI controller (instead of the usual LSI Logic SAS) for the drives where the Starwind img files are stored?

Thank you very much!

Hi Herman!

Connections listed seem to be OK to me.

I would recommend to setup the whole configuration as simple as possible. Each additional feature you enable could possibly lead to strange issues and problems. Simple means stable

Hope the topic was helpful.

Thank you all!