What are the real benefits of virtualization?

A partial list of potential benefits includes improved service levels, a reduction in management complexity, and improved utilization of storage assets.

By David Hill

Virtualization is a fashionable word in the IT lexicon these days, but does it have staying power? What is virtualization and why/where/when does it matter?

Before we delve into those issues, it’s important to note that virtualization is not reserved for storage; in the IT world any resources can be virtualized, including servers, networks, operating systems, and applications. This article focuses only on storage virtualization.

Block-based storage virtualization is the technology that most people think of, but it is only one of many types of virtualization. The Storage Networking Industry Association’s virtualization taxonomy breaks down virtualization as follows:

• What is virtualized?-block; disk; tape, tape drive, tape library; file, file system, record; other device virtualization
• Where is it done?-host server, network, storage device
• How is it implemented?-in-band, out-of-band

SNIA also has a shared storage model with a variety of levels, including storage devices (level 1), block aggregation (level 2), file/record layer (level 3), and applications (level 4). The focus of this article is on two types of storage virtualization: block- and file-based virtualization.

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