Storage Virtualization for Small and Midsize Businesses

More on storage virtualization

According to various IDC surveys of IT users, storage is one of a few categories where buyers are reluctant to cut spending. But while storage budgets aren’t on the chopping block just yet, storage professionals remain charged with cutting costs. One area where small businesses potentially can reap high return on investment is storage virtualization.

Storage budgets may not be on the chopping block, but storage professionals remain charged with cutting costs. One area where small businesses find potential for high return on investment is storage virtualization.

The essential idea behind storage virtualization is to unite multiple storage
devices into what appears to be a single storage pool, which you can centrally
manage. Thus, it becomes easier to manage these devices and back them up. Vendors
that offer storage virtualization solutions are beginning to offer storage area
networks that operate over existing Ethernet connections as opposed to requiring
expensive Fibre Channel networks.

Although the typical SMB virtualization foray often begins with free offerings, such
as ESXi without vCenter, Hyper-V without System Center Virtual Machine Manager
(SCVMM) or XenServer, decisions about storage for the virtualized infrastructure
must be made. Shared storage is one of the most critical design elements of virtualization environments,
big or small, and it is further complicated because there may not be a shared storage infrastructure present.

Other factors to take into consideration include, connectivity, drive type and the number of drives, and hypervisor compatibility.

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