HCI Evaluation Kit From StarWind usefull for quick cluster Sandboxing tests

StarWind HCI Evaluation Kit allows you to test in the lab the latest version of StarWind for Hyper-V users. It saves your time when evaluating the solution. The hardware and software requirements are pretty low as the main reason is to give out the eval for testing with the easiest setup possible. You can even go all virtual and set up virtual Hyper-V Host and have a “cluster-in-a-box” setup for the lab testing. That's what I have done in the lab as I'm using VMware Workstation. All I had to do is to deploy a Hyper-V 2019 and launch the installation wizard.

Then the assistant takes care of the rest. After downloading the package, just unzip it and paste the folder with all the files onto the Hyper-V server you're using (virtual or physical). Then launch the installer and carry on. StarWind has a detailed step-by-step guide so I won't repeat it here. I'll just show you some screenshots from the setup. The solution runs in either in a sandbox (cluster-in-the-box) or as a two-node solution.

At the final, you'll have a 2-node StarWind cluster providing shared storage for those two nodes. The underlying hypervisor is Hyper-V.

Quote From StarWind

All this process remains invisible to you and we want it to stay that way, because we are looking to minimize your time and efforts spent on IT infrastructure deployment. But can you actually feel the same benefits when you are willing to try out StarWind HCA to understand its operation and functioning? We have prepared the StarWind HCI Evaluation Kit to allow you to test the functionality of StarWind HCA in an effortless way. Just on a single server, you can now deploy StarWind HCA cluster without a need to look for specific hardware, install separate components and further tinker to make the whole thing work.

StarWind HCI Evaluation Kit is deployed as a Linux-based virtual machine with a web-based wizard that will deploy all the necessary components for the Hyper-V sandbox cluster.

System requirements

Hypervisor (either physical or virtual):
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 with installed Hyper-V role

Storage:
~50 GB free storage space for the StarWind HCI Evaluation Kit Appliance and installation files
Up to 150 GB of free storage space for the HCI Evaluation Kit cluster (depending on the selected deployment size)

RAM:
14 GB of free RAM for a single node deployment
24 GB of free RAM for a dual-node deployment

Web browser:
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Chromium-based web browsers (Chromium, MS Edge, etc.), or Opera

Installation