Storage Virtualization
Defining Storage Virtualization
Defining Storage Virtualization
The SNIA Definition
“The act of abstracting, hiding or isolating
the internal function of a storage (sub)
system or service from applications,
computer servers or general network
resources for the purpose of enabling
application- and network-independent
management of storage or data.”
SNIAs definition was the act of abstracting, hiding or isolating (so it’s our
abstraction layer)
By separating out the physical administration of storage (what physical
resources go into which storage pools) from its logical administration (which
applications require how much storage of which types), both tasks are
simplified. Finally, it allows applications to fully use the SAN without needing to
know about the physical detail of the underlying architecture.
For example, an e-commerce application can take an order and write a record,
without needing to know anything about all the processes that might be
involved in actually allocating that record to physical disk space.