Moderator: Peter Burris
Analyst: David Floyer
Virtualization has been part of IT since the 1960s as a technology for optimizing the utilization of hardware against specific named application requirements and simplifying the management of resources invoked to provide processing support. However, only recently has virtualization been brought to the heterogeneous storage world, largely in the form of products from the large, high-end storage suppliers – IBM, EMC, HDS, etc.
The advantages of virtualization in the first incarnations of these technologies are becoming clear. First it provides the capability to optimize storage services to applications by facilitating movement of data between tiers and migration of data between different generations of technology. It also empowers a dramatic simplification of the tooling and practices for storage administration by introducing common storage processes and procedures. Virtualization also can decrease software costs by better leveraging management software across multiple types of technology.
Virtualization programs have begun picking up steam in the last 18 months. Two types of virtualization technology have been introduced to make this possible:
- In-band appliances that essentially redirect storage I/O based on the mapping data held largely in cache to provide a virtualization layer to storage resources.
- Split-path architectures that handle storage control metadata in the appliance and data-related requests through technology (called a blade) in an intelligent switch.
Storage virtualization often sells itself in circumstances in which an IT organization has already accepted the benefits of virtualization across resources. In those circumstances we hear that the storage administration teams are quicker to embrace storage technology than might be expected. However, a key challenge for vendors is reducing the time between introduction of new technology (and particularly new microcode) and its certification within the virtualization stack: Three months is a reasonable target; anything longer begins to create problems in the market and in specific user organizations.
Looking forward, storage virtualization will be part of a broad set of virtualization processes, but within it users must differentiate between different paths to virtualization including volume and port approaches. We expect to see an enormous amount of activity in the next 24-36 months as users become more comfortable with storage virtualization policies and programs and vendors introduce virtualization products that provide real transparent paths to clean, simple certification in a more heterogeneous storage infrastructure world.
Action Item: Volume virtualization is proving itself in user organizations today. Users should look to initiate programs for implementing volume virtualization where data migration, operational complexity and management software costs are onerous. An effort to virtualize in storage may or may not go hand-in-hand with efforts to virtualize elsewhere, but the overall objective must be a flattening of the management stack of IT infrastructure.
Footnotes: