On paper, heterogeneous storage virtualization should be a huge winner. In general, while clearly the innovation has had some traction in the marketplace, its application has not been broad-based. This is changing, albeit slowly.
Discussions with Wikibon users show that heterogeneous storage virtualization engines have typically been been deployed to support focused initiatives to develop a specific business capability. The main areas of emphasis have been:
- Tiered storage - in an effort to create a default tier 2 strategy and avoid expensive tier 1 platforms;
- Migration capability - especially for customers facing a rolling financially-forced lease conversion every year or those with particularly frequent migrations due to acquisition strategies;
- Storage consolidation - in an effort to pool heterogeneous storage assets;
- VMware and server virtualization - to support backend storage virtualization for virtualized server environments.
There are others (e.g. disaster recovery and remote replication) but these are the main applications users cite as the end game where heterogeneous storage virtualization is the means. In general, heterogeneous storage virtualization as a business capability has not been the objective, largely because in and of itself it's not a business goal.
The current economic crisis will increase pressure on organizations with a diverse base of installed arrays to establish a mainstream, low-cost tier 2 data store that can accommodate a variety of array types. LSI's SVM 5 which was discussed on Tuesday's Peer Incite call is an example of heterogeneous technology coming to the mainstream. The technology competes with IBM's SAN Volume Controller (SVC), Hitachi's USPV (especially the USPVM diskless version) and EMC's Invista. Interestingly, LSI customers including IBM (SVC), HP (USPV) and Sun (USPV) all sell heterogeneous virtualization technologies today. LSI is positioning SVM 5 at the sweet spot customer base of these OEMs, and the technology is compelling due to it's mainstream appeal, high functionality, and competitive cost.
The challenge is to simplify the transition to the virtualized infrastructure. Customers want a two-step process to storage provisioning: 1) Plan; 2) Deploy. Unfortunately, to get to an environment that supports heterogeneous assets in two steps, users have to go through a four step process: 1) Plan; 2) Design; 3) Test; 4) Deploy. Supporting this transition to a heterogeneous virtualized infrastructure can often be cumbersome, risky, and expensive.
The customer is left with a difficult choice. Keep adding to the current stove-piped infrastructure, and go further into the LUN management heart of darkness, or create a homogeneous virtualized stove-pipe and go with the likes of 3PAR, Compellent, Pillar, LeftHand (HP), EqualLogic (Dell) or other emergent suppliers.
Action Item: Heterogeneous storage virtualization suppliers need to proactively recognize the risks customers face in transitioning to such an environment and endeavor to minimize these risks. Interoperability matrices, professional services, and use cases all help. However to be successful suppliers must aggressively put forth and market a vision of what storage infrastructure will look like in the next decade.
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