Storage Virtualization: Help or Hype? (
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Two buzzwords, storage and virtualization, are coming together. Here's how to sort the myths from reality.By now, the arguments for increased storage capacity and for virtualization
are rote.
Everyone understands that data is piling up at an alarming rate. Business
intelligence efforts, swelling databases, and regulations such as HIPAA (Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
conspire to keep storage space at a premium. Meanwhile, server virtualization
continues to prove its worth by lowering costs and boosting efficiency in the
data center. Even the desktop is going virtual as enterprises increasingly see
the value of centralized management.
But combine the two, storage and virtualization, and the situation gets a
bit sticky. What should you and your customers make of storage virtualization?
The answers can vary from vendor to vendor, and it can be difficult to sort out
the myths from the reality.
"Many people who think storage virtualization is the answer to their
problem are wrong," says Jim DeCaires, storage product marketing manager
at Fujitsu, adding that the technology has a long way to go before it can
provide the kind of value VARs need to deliver and customers are clamoring for.
There are three major reasons why customers believe storage virtualization
can help them, according to DeCaires, who says he's a proponent of storage
virtualization technology, but adds that it's crucial VARs understand what the
technology can and cannot do for customers.
First, customers believe that storage virtualization can help them more
easily consolidate data from multiple data stores, DeCaires says, but the same
outcome can be accomplished with traditional storage consolidation techniques.
"Customers say, 'I have storage systems scattered all over my data
center and I want data on one appliance, managed under one layer,' but doing
this consolidation means you have to migrate the data into the virtualization
environment before you can move into one shared storage system," DeCaires
says, meaning the data has to migrate twice. Often it's a simpler and more
cost-effective solution just to move the stored data once into one large
storage systems.
Second, customers with dynamic data centers often consider storage
virtualization solutions to ease the burden and cost of moving data from one
store to another for access, secure storage or archiving. However, DeCaires
says, "Customers with highly mobile data centers are spending a lot of
money moving that info around, whether it's virtualized or not."
Finally, DeCaires says most companies are looking to extend the life of
lower-cost, outdated legacy storage systems by moving archived data onto those
hardware and software systems.
"They are looking for technology flexibility from their old storage
systems, and the thinking is that if I can virtualize a lot of data, then I can
use these older systems as capacity," DeCaires says. "They think
it'll be like getting a tech refresh without having to buy more storage
technology."
From a cost perspective, however, this approach doesn't make much sense, he
says. From dealing with multiple service and support contracts—if the older
technology is still supported—to managing incompatible hardware and software
from different vendors, "it's often better to move data into one, newer
storage platform," he says.