The advent of hyperconvergence and software-defined storage technologies makes virtual data storage a viable alternative for companies looking to cut down on IT costs. In fact, since these solutions don’t require redundancies in the hardware typically found in traditional enterprise storage systems for disaster recovery, they are able to reduce both upfront expense and ongoing operating costs by significantly.

Virtual data storage permits IT to pool physical storage devices, such as SANs, into what appears as a single device or virtual storage array. There are a variety of ways to implement the technology such as host-based virtualization and network-based storage (which combines storage devices from an FC http://virtualdataspace.biz/dropbox-vs-sharefile-what-to-choose or iSCSI storage system into one pool controlled by a central management console). Host-based Virtualization is typically used in HCI Systems and Cloud Storage.

Virtual storage should be compatible not only with the hardware infrastructure itself but also with servers, hypervisors, and networking components. It should also enable data encryption as well as granular authentication, access controls, as well as robust backup and disaster recovery capabilities.

Additionally, virtual storage must be able to handle the issues of performance and latency. This includes ensuring that critical software can run without compromising performance or adding latency to data retrieval. This includes assessing the performance of storage controllers, network bandwidth and capacity of disk I/O as well as setting up cache mechanisms. This also includes the implementation of advanced storage functions, like tiering and replication at the virtualization level.