Storage Virtualization

Storage virtualization is the merging of physical storage from multiple storage devices so that it appears like a single storage device.

This procedure consists of abstracting and covering the internal functions of a storage device from the host application, host servers, or a general network to provide the facility of the application and network independent management of storage.

Storage virtualization is also called cloud storage. The management of storage and data is a difficult and time-consuming task. Storage virtualization helps to solve this problem by providing the facility of secure backup, archiving, and recovery takes by consuming less time. Storage virtualization accumulated the function and hides the actual complexity of the storage area network (SAN). By using software applications, storage virtualization can be implemented.

Types of Storage Virtualization

There are four types of storage virtualization

1. Block virtualization
2. Disk virtualization
3. Tape virtualization
4. File virtualization

Reasons to Implement Storage Virtualization

• To improve storage management in a different IT environment.
• Better storage virtualization
• It provides improved availability and estimation of down-time with automated management.

 Storage Virtualization Model

There are various types of storage virtualization model.

1. Storage devices
2. Block aggregation layer
3. File/record layer
4. Application layer

Advantages of Storage Virtualization

1. Data is stored in the more efficient locations, which is away from the particular host. If any host will cause failure, than the data will not lost.
2. The storage device can perform an advanced function like replication, reduplication, and disaster recovery functionality.
3. By performing abstraction of the storage level, IT operations became more flexible in how storage is provided, partitioned, and protected.

Storage Virtualization Methods

There are different ways where storage can be applied to a virtualized environment.

1. Host–based storage virtualization: - In host-based storage virtualization, the host, or a hyper-converged system made up of multiple hosts, presents virtual drives of a set capacity to the guest machines, whether they are VMs is an enterprise environment or PC’s accessing cloud storage. All of the virtualization and management are done at the host level through software, and the physical storage can be almost in any device or array.
2. Array-based storage virtualization:- In this method, a storage array is present in various types of physical storage for use as storage tiers. Storage tier is made up of solid-state drives (SSDs), or HDDs is handled by software in the array and is hidden at the guest machine or user level.
3. Network-based storage virtualization:- It is the most common form of storage virtualization used in enterprises. A network device smart, like a smart switch or purpose-built-server, connects to all storage devices in a fiber channel (FC) storage area network (SAN).