Storage Virtualization
Storage Virtualization Architectures
Virtualization Solutions
– In the Host:
• File systems or database objects
• Volume managers
Virtualization
manager
– In the Network:
Virtualization
• Symmetric (in-band)
manager
• Asymmetric (out-of-band)
– In the Storage Subsystem:
• Integrated into controller
Virtualization
• Symmetric (in-band)
manager
When we talk about SAN virtualization, we typically mean one of three types of
solutions:
Host-based virtualization operates at the level of file systems, or
sometimes database objects. Volume managers like VERITAS Volume
Manager are virtualization solutions. Even Windows Logical Volume
Manager (i.e. Disk Manager) is a type of virtualization: RAID is
virtualization.
There are two types of Network-based SAN-based virtualization:
symmetric (in-band)
asymmetric (out-of-band).
Subsystem-based virtualization is performed by the RAID controller
firmware. The subsystem partitions the disks into small partitions and
dynamically builds logical volumes out of these smaller pieces.