• The ability to utilize all available space in a centralized storage pool
• Enables storage to be centrally managed and shared with a heterogeneous server network
• Separates the representation of storage to the server operating system from actual physical storage connected over an external network
At its simplest level, storage virtualization means organizing multiple physical disks into logical, or "virtual," storage resources: The ability to manage virtual resource pools, rather than individual disks, allows many tasks to be performed more efficiently and without downtime. New storage can be added to keep up with capacity demands and storage configurations can be changed to optimize performance, all without taking volumes offline. 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, a database application could 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.