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Data storage server virtualization-What does this buzzword mean?
What is data storage server virtualization?
Sponsored LinksData storage server virtualization is the most misused buzzword in the data storage industry today.Whether it is to sell a SAN, a NAS, a network router or anything to do with data storage,data storage salesmen always speak about the wonderful data storage server virtualization techniques the product uses!
Jokes aside,data storage server virtualization is simply a set of data storage technologies that create an abstraction layer between logical storage and physical storage.
Advantages of data storage virtualization(if and when a perfect data storage virtualization storage solution is in the market!)
- Data storage virtualization would result in vendor neutral data storage for the organization. The 'vendor neutral' phrase itself should indicate even to the casual data center professional that most,if not all,of the data storage virtualization claims by hardware vendors are plain marketing hogwash!
- Data storage virtualization will reduce the complexity of dealing with data storage. Today, data storage is still extremely complex and there is an urgent need for a data storage solution involving data virtualization that will provide a layer above physical storage for applications to talk to.
- Data storage server virtualization will save cost. The cost savings in
data storage virtualization will be in the following two categories
- One avenue of cost savings will be due to the elimination of manual processes in dealing with physical storage as a result of data storage server virtualization. Physical storage management is still largely a manual task for data center professionals, and as a result data center professionals spend a great degree of their time in non production menial tasks rather than strategic data storage solutions such as server consolidation.
- The other avenue due to server virtualization of cost savings will be as a result of vendor inter operability within the data storage data centers. Data storage server virtualization will ensure enough open standards so that data centers do not need to be dependent on a single hardware vendor and have adequate bargaining power. This is one primary reason that data storage hardware vendors are reluctant to adopt true data storage server virtualization, despite all their marketing hype.
- Data replication, SANs and other storage implementations can be vendor independent, thanks to data storage server virtualization.
Where is data storage server virtualization today?
As the above description of the features of a perfect data storage server virtualization will tell you,there is no perfect data storage server virtualization product in the market today.
Apart from marketing hype,data storage server virtualization exists only in the academic world. One good paper from Compaq talks about data storage server virtualization resulting in data storage becoming a utility. Data storage will be logically thought as a pool of available data storage to be accessed and managed through a logical abstraction layer.
Some of the almost data server virtualization products in the market include
- IBM : IBM has introduced a SAN controller that performs all the complex SAN management functions. The entire IBM data server virtualization solution is called 'Total Storage'
- EMC: EMC , the largest leader focussed in the data storage space offers a data storage server virtualization solution known as 'Information Lifecycle Management'.
- VMware: VMware,a subsidiary of EMC, is really shaking up the server virtualization market by innovation into almost true storage virtualization products. The VMWare Workstation product,is a great innovation in the data storage space.
- HP: HP has introduced some data storage server virtualization solutions based on an 'Enterprise Network Storage Architecture'.