Galvin Chang, Associate Director of Infortrend Technology (www.infortrend.com), says:
Why is storage virtualization important for SMEs (small to midsized enterprise)?
Better storage cost management: According to research reports, the typical storage utilization rate is about 40%. IT managers tend to acquire extra storage space for future business growth. This dilemma stems from concerns over unplanned downtime when expanding storage systems. Storage virtualization, like server virtualization, can deliver a major benefit for users, namely that no downtime is required for storage expansion. Along with advanced storage technology (such as thin provisioning), IT managers no longer need to allocate unused storage space and will have better storage cost management.
Improved storage management: IT managers can easily deploy virtualized storage for any specific application in a short time. This can help to eliminate the long deployment times associated with traditional physical storage architecture. Virtualized storage can also support data migration within a storage pool with no downtime, further improving service levels when conducting regular storage maintenance tasks. If all storage is virtualized, data centers will enjoy a simplified storage infrastructure plus a centralized management console, which should be an improvement for storage management.
