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Virtualizing The Data Center
Server and Storage Virtualization are not just the latest buzzwords. Virtualization
has become the de facto standard for many progressive businesses, whether they be
large enterprises or SMBs. The value of virtualization is multi-fold. Virtualization
allows you to do more with less:
- manage more IT projects with fewer resources
- expand your IT infrastructure while actually reducing your data center's
electricity and cooling needs, not to mention dramatically reducing the footprint
- rapidly deploy new applications in a fraction of the time it currently takes
- improve the resiliency or availability of your IT services while actually
reducing equipment
Most administrators familiar with virtualization usually associate the concept
with Server Virtualization via products from companies like
VMWare or
Microsoft. Virtualizing
the storage is a complementary, if not essential, part of the equation.
Storage Area Networks and Virtual Storage
Storage Virtualization is the concept of completely abstracting the disk space used
by your server data from the physical disks or "spindles". In a sense, any volume
that is based on a RAID group or external or shared storage array can be thought of
as a logical or virtual quantity, but Storage Virtualization goes well beyond simple
consolidation of disks in a common storage array or the so-called "SAN".
Storage Virtualization allows you to aggregate disks and LUNs from disparate systems
into common storage pools. Different classes of storage from multiple vendors can be
managed and exploited as a whole. Imagine being able to take a snapshot (or BCV)
of a Tier 1 storage array volume onto a SATA drive in a JBOD. Imagine being able
to provide a unique remote replication service for any and all of the volumes in
a heterogeneous SAN, replicating to low-end SATA storage at a DR site. The
possibilities are virtually endless.
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