By Ramdas S CRN, Sep 4, 2014

Storage virtualization could potentially change the enterprise storage landscape as software-defined storage takes center-stage

Storage virtualization has been around for a long time, in fact for more than a decade. However, its real impact started just a few quarters back. With servers being optimized through server virtualization, there have been a number of attempts to virtualize both networks and storage components in the data center.

Many customers are adopting storage virtualization to have a central pool of the storage and centrally manage their storage resources. It enables them to centrally allocate the required storage to various applications, says Sandip Sarkar, Director, Sales, Sterling Infoways, Gurgaon.

Neeraj Matiyani, Country Manager, Storage Solutions, Dell India, explains, There are three major benefits which storage virtualization brings to the table. You can easily create virtual disks, assign and re-create them. You can migrate data non-disruptively, and finally orchestrate everything through software APIs.

What the industry is yet to agree on is the right mode of implementation. Vendors such as NetApp, EMC and IBM have long looked at either bundling software along with their storage boxes or even shipping specialized appliances which could control existing SAN and NAS hardware and allocate storage for virtual storage disks. Hitachi Data Systems has taken a different approachthe vendor has embedded a virtualization stack inside a SAN controller.

Matiyani agrees that the choices are plenty. Dell itself is exploring every possible way to offer storage virtualization. Apart from built-in functionality inside its own boxes it has partnerships with software vendors such as Nutanix and Nexenta to offer their software-defined storage. There is also a strong OpenStack practice.

With storage virtualization you can create virtual disks, assign and re-create them; migrate data non-disruptively, and orchestrate everything through software APIs

Neeraj Matiyani, Country Manager, Storage Solutions, Dell India

Software-defined VMware, which has invested close to $1.6 billion in the past three years in various acquisitions around network and storage virtualization, is threatening to change the landscape. VMwares pitch is clear: it is offering CIOs a single-pane view of the entire infrastructure as a bunch of software components which can be used to not just allocate virtual disks but even offer network ports. Explains Raghu Raghuram, EVP, Cloud Infrastructure Management, VMware, Our vision is to bring the software defined model to every aspect of maintaining and managing the data center. We intend to virtualize networking and storage components, and our value proposition has attracted 150+ customers so far.

Read the original:
Storage Virtualization Is A Potential Game Changer

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September 4, 2014 at 5:08 pm by Mr HomeBuilder
Category: Landscape Pool