Storage Virtualization a Corporate Priority and a Cloud Building Block

You may have seen the press on the recently released Symantec survey on the state of the Data Center 2010.  Having been involved in these efforts in the past, I know they are typically generated by a PR agency and can be thinly veiled platforms for product promotions.  Yet this one rings true at least as it pertains to the continued importance of certain technologies such as Storage Virtualization.  So long as data growth continues about 60% a year, regardless of a company's size, or top line growth, something needs to be done to manage the growing torrent of bits & bytes, but with about the same number of IT staff.  Because, as they say, even bad numbers need to be stored somewhere.

The bigger trend I'm seeing is that virtualized storage resources are becoming an atomic unit of a Dynamic IT operation.  Companies are adopting ‘private cloud computing’ and are using capabilities like storage virtualization to make their environments more dynamic, cost effective and responsive to the needs of the business.   In order to realize these benefits, virtualized storage, server and network resources need to be managed in a unified way, and this requires a unified, intelligent fabric connecting it all.

I echo the recommendation of leading infrastructure players that IT organizations proceed cautiously and develop an infrastructure that can support the performance, security and distributed data aspects of cloud computing and virtualization. 

We can expect to see continued innovation in managing larger data sets either via private cloud array and fabric-based solutions or external cloud-based services -- both with the goal to achieve greater scalability, reduced total cost of ownership and improved ability to manage geographically distributed data sets.  All of these efforts will benefit from a high-throughput, converged network that can intelligently manage data at the packet-level and optimize connections between resources.

5 Reasons to Virtualize Storage

It's great to see proponents of Storage Virtualization out there, and especially those promoting network-based approaches such as Invista.  Enjoy this recent blog post from someone who apparently knows a thing or two about the benefits of storage virtualization.

More info on a leading heterogeneous storage virtualization offring is available at www.InvistaOnBrocade.com.