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Canonical OpenStack vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Canonical OpenStack

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ACanonical OpenStack is the cloud openstack option from Canonical in the UK. Using private and public cloud infrastructure at the same time allows users to optimise CapEx and OpEx costs. Users can create cost-effective, enterprise-grade public cloud infrastructure on Ubuntu.

    $7,500

    one-time fee

    StarWind HCA

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AThe StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution designed to reduce application downtime on a reasonable budget.N/A
    Pricing
    Canonical OpenStackStarWind HCA
    Editions & Modules
    Private Cloud Build
    $75,000
    fixed price
    Private Cloud Build Plus
    $150,000
    fixed price
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Canonical OpenStackStarWind HCA
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsAdditional features, functionality, and integrations are available via add-ons—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Canonical OpenStackStarWind HCA
    Considered Both Products
    Canonical Ltd
    No answer on this topic
    StarWind
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    51 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    51 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    51 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    48 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    49 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Canonical OpenStackStarWind HCA
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    Scale Computing Platform
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Canonical OpenStackStarWind HCA
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.5
    (63 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.7
    (53 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.5
    (54 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Canonical OpenStackStarWind HCA
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Canonical Ltd
    Ubuntu OpenStack is well suited for startups where there are very tight financial constraints. As Ubuntu OpenStack is open source, the startup organizations will not have to spend a lot when compared to their commercial offerings in the market. Ubuntu OpenStack is less appropriate in organizations where they don't want to have private on-prem clouds. As deploying a private on-prem cloud is a very cumbersome and tedious task, the organizations must have a dedicated team to manage such on-prem deployments.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    StarWind
    As a nonprofit, we needed a virtualization platform that was reliable, cost effective, and simple to administer. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance checked all the boxes for us. We went with their refurbished models to lower the cost, and they've been rock solid. We were able to simplify our environment and the platform has been so reliable that I really don't have to think about it. This has been great for me as the sole sysadmin. There are a lot of pieces to manage, and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance have allowed me to focus less on the platform and more on the VM's themselves and the other pieces of our network environment. I think as long as you get the "right size" of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance that this platform could work well for many organizations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Canonical Ltd
    • Very easy to use, learning curve is very short. Don't need to invest months of training before using it
    • Well suited with Jenkins for automated tests
    • Works well on large sets of heterogeneous hardware
    Read full review
    StarWind
    • It is extremely easy to set up, it comes with most options pre-configured for you. But the support group will walk through your entire setup and migration.
    • It is monitored by StarWind 24x7. Instead of issues being reactive with the monitoring I'm hoping things will be more proactive.
    • The performance has been outstanding. I think disk was our main limiting factor with our hold hardware.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Canonical Ltd
    • More customizable options while choosing virtual machine configurations would be great.
    • To have regular online learning sessions directly from Ubuntu OpenStack experts [to] help users and for those who implement it.
    • Giving admin more control on what privileges they can grant to their users.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    StarWind
    • Support team has slight accent but is not too difficult to understand.
    • Emphasis on security can be improved. Things like default passwords were not changed initially until requested.
    • Can't really think of much else...If I had to split hairs...on reboots sometimes it took a while to sync with the other node. Max was 30 minutes, but 99% of the time it's 3-4 minutes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Canonical Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    StarWind
    The hardware appliance convinced me. It is also good to use as a product in the box.Experience of the speed and security of the storage and the data on the storage is important.Installation is relatively easy and support is supportive. You are not left alone.Therefore a clear recommendation
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Canonical Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    StarWind
    Overall, the appliance is versatile. It covers the adaptation to all current hypervisors and can be addressed via different protocols. This prepares you for a wide range of uses.Rack mounting is also well thought out. And last but not least, apart from the technical performance, it is also an eye-catcher.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Canonical Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    StarWind
    Working with the
    support team has been great. Connecting with somebody during and after business
    hours has been smooth, and they have always been responsive and professional. I don't have to wait very long to hear back from them when either sending out an email with a question or inquiry or when calling after business hours when we had to shutdown and bring back up the servers due to hurricanes here in Florida.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Canonical Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    StarWind
    Literally, while writing this review, I just received an email from starwind saying my VSAN version was out of date due to a recent update coming out and they offered to help me install it. Its just amazing how "on top of it" support is. They'll monitor downtime, reboots, version issues, even the bios firmware on the Dell servers... I can't imagine using any other vendor, they just do it all, and they do it well.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Canonical Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    StarWind
    The old saying: Preparation is everything.It should be ensured in advance that the operating system is up-to-date and therefore suitable for the appliance.The recommended network adapters should also be used in the network and the firewall rules adjusted.If this is planned in advance and everything is prepared, then the installation can be carried out relatively quickly.The manuals and the StarWind website are also a very good help.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Canonical Ltd
    Everybody knows VMWare which is the world's number one in data center infrastructure management. OpenStack is lot lot less expensive but doesn't offer all the functionalities you have with VMWare especially for High Availability and load balancing. You should go for OpenStack if you need an easy to use solution without the need for external consultants. If you don't have the capacity to manage your own infrastructure you had better go for VMWare.
    Read full review
    StarWind
    Scale was a proprietary SAN software/hardware and outrageously high priced. The StarWind HyperConverged Appliance was just Dell servers with VMWare ESXi Hypervisor installed running two Windows Servers virtual machines where the StarWind SAN software is installed on. The only thing that was proprietary for StarWind was the StarWind SAN software
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Canonical Ltd
    • Lighter on initial spending for the organization.
    • Deployments which have no vendor locking makes management decisions easier.
    • Support from great community saved lot of time for engineers managing it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    StarWind
    • Our CIS software has some poorly optimized SQL logic. Our old Failover Cluster w/ a VNXe3200 SAN would take up to 7 seconds to pull a customer's records up. It now takes only 1-2 seconds. Our front office has been much more pleasant since their install.
    • I would only rarely have to interact with our blade switches and VNXe SAN, so I wouldn't necessarily retain the knowledge of how to configure them. Each time I'd need to make a change, I'd have to refer back to my documentation. That's no longer an issue I have to deal with.
    • The rack footprint for our cluster went from 14U to 4U, and we were able to achieve it with much less network cabling and with lowered power requirements.
    Read full review
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