Jenkins is an open source automation server. Jenkins provides hundreds of plugins to support building, deploying and automating any project. As an extensible automation server, Jenkins can be used as a simple CI server or turned into a continuous delivery hub for any project.
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StarWind HCA
Score8.6 out of 10
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The StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution designed to reduce application downtime on a reasonable budget.
Jenkins is a highly customizable CI/CD tool with excellent community support. One can use Jenkins to build and deploy monolith services to microservices with ease. It can handle multiple "builds" per agent simultaneously, but the process can be resource hungry, and you need some impressive specs server for that. With Jenkins, you can automate almost any task. Also, as it is an open source, we can save a load of money by not spending on enterprise CI/CD tools.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Automated Builds: Jenkins is configured to monitor the version control system for new pull requests. Once a pull request is created, Jenkins automatically triggers a build process. It checks out the code, compiles it, and performs any necessary build steps specified in the configuration.
Unit Testing: Jenkins runs the suite of unit tests defined for the project. These tests verify the functionality of individual components and catch any regressions or errors. If any unit tests fail, Jenkins marks the build as unsuccessful, and the developer is notified to fix the issues.
Code Analysis: Jenkins integrates with code analysis tools like SonarQube or Checkstyle. It analyzes the code for quality, adherence to coding standards, and potential bugs or vulnerabilities. The results are reported back to the developer and the product review team for further inspection.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
We have a certain buy-in as we have made a lot of integrations and useful tools around jenkins, so it would cost us quite some time to change to another tool. Besides that, it is very versatile, and once you have things set up, it feels unnecessary to change tool. It is also a plus that it is open source.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Jenkins streamlines development and provides end to end automated integration and deployment. It even supports Docker and Kubernetes using which container instances can be managed effectively. It is easy to add documentation and apply role based access to files and services using Jenkins giving full control to the users. Any deviation can be easily tracked using the audit logs.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
No, when we integrated this with GitHub, it becomes more easy and smart to manage and control our workforce. Our distributed workforce is now streamlined to a single bucket. All of our codes and production outputs are now automatically synced with all the workers. There are many cases when our in-house team makes changes in the release, our remote workers make another release with other environment variables. So it is better to get all of the work in control.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
As with all open source solutions, the support can be minimal and the information that you can find online can at times be misleading. Support may be one of the only real downsides to the overall software package. The user community can be helpful and is needed as the product is not the most user-friendly thing we have used.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
It is worth well the time to setup Jenkins in a docker container. It is also well worth to take the time to move any "Jenkins configuration" into Jenkinsfiles and not take shortcuts.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Overall, Jenkins is the easiest platform for someone who has no experience to come in and use effectively. We can get a junior engineer into Jenkins, give them access, and point them in the right direction with minimal hand-holding. The competing products I have used (TravisCI/GitLab/Azure) provide other options but can obfuscate the process due to the lack of straightforward simplicity. In other areas (capability, power, customization), Jenkins keeps up with the competition and, in some areas, like customization, exceeds others.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
