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In this post, I will show you how to deploy an already deployed StorSimple appliance as a file server/NAS.
An interesting scenario with StorSimple is to use it as a file server. Your shares are created from the Azure Portal but managed locally. They are normal Windows shared folders that offer the usual features of SMB networking. They also potentially have great speed. There are a few scenarios that you can consider, including the small business and branch office.
Many small businesses, even those using cloud services such as Office 365, continue to run a domain controller, accounting application, and file server on servers. Hopefully, these are virtual machines. If all three roles are running on a single virtualization host, no matter what virtualization that was, it would normally require 3x the virtual licenses. This requires the host to be licensed twice for Windows Server Standard. You need 2x the virtual licenses per Standard license assigned to a physical machine. However, if the file server was a StorSimple appliance:
Larger businesses with branch offices can also benefit in a very similar way. The appliance can offer file services in each branch office and use the cloud for scale out, automatic backup, and a DR solution. This has a recovery time objective (RTO) of a couple of minutes. The deployment of a cloud-managed appliance will simplify and reduce the IT costs of branch office deployments.
After you deploy the virtual appliance, you will perform a number of steps, which were documented in a previous article. One of these steps is when you configure the StorSimple, either as a file server/NAS or as an iSCSI storage appliance. Make sure you choose the File Server option.
Configure StorSimple Device Settings and Domain Join [Image Credit: Aidan Finn]
Adding a New Share to the StorSimple Virtual Appliance [Image Credit: Aidan Finn]
The New Share Viewed in the Azure Portal [Image Credit: Aidan Finn]
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