Three degrees of storage virtualization
Over the years, virtualization has been employed in almost every facet of storage technology: disk, controller, array, SAN, LAN and even host (think logical volume manager). At the risk of oversimplification, I'd suggest that there are three broad categories: inside the box, outside the box and tape emulation. Each of these offers distinct benefits as well as some commonalities.
A closer look at storage virtualization
Managing disk storage was once simple: If we needed more space, we got a bigger disk drive. But data storage needs grew, so we started adding multiple disk drives. Finding and managing these became harder and took more time, so we developed RAID, network-attached storage and storage-area networks. Still, managing and maintaining thousands of disk drives became an ever more onerous task. The latest answer to this dilemma is storage virtualization.
The virtual mindset
As companies are diving deeper into virtualized storage projects, IT managers are getting a better understanding of the staff skills they need to make those projects succeed. The exact talents required depend on the type of storage implementation, but most employers say they're in the market for two kinds of IT worker: technicians with vendor-specific SAN or NAS knowledge, and systems administrators and IT architects who understand the complexities and interdependencies among applications, operating systems and I/O, all of which affect storage requirements.
Forrester White Paper: Server Virtualization Security
Perhaps the biggest concern with securing x86-based virtual server environments is updating existing management and security processes to cope with relatively new technology. Forrester believes that updated security practices will adequately protect most organizations’ systems.
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