Case Study: H&R Reit achieves Microsoft Exchange uptime and host-level redundancy with StarWind Software's VSAN

H&R Reit ensures applications uptime and redundancy for its Microsoft Exchange Server with StarWind VSAN

H&R Reit, a Canadian property development and management company, faced high email downtime risk from a single-server Microsoft Exchange deployment that lacked host-level redundancy. The existing Veeam-based backup-to-host approach proved inadequate, and budget constraints plus hardware dissimilarity ruled out alternatives like VMware vSAN and Microsoft S2D; the company needed a hyperconverged solution that avoided a costly rip-and-replace or a SAN single point of failure.

StarWind VSAN met those requirements, running on H&R Reit’s existing hardware to create two-host VMware and Windows failover clusters and a two-member Exchange DAG. The deployment eliminated the SPOF, enabled rolling maintenance and updates without email downtime, delivered consistent performance, and was backed by responsive 24/7 support, meeting the company’s availability and cost objectives.

H&R Reit

Edrissa Jarju

IT manager