About increasing efficiency and productivity through storage virtualization

Last published : Jul 06, 2026
The Storage Foundation products add value to your enterprise by providing storage virtualization - the process of taking multiple physical storage devices and combining them into logical (virtual) storage devices that are allocated to applications and users at will.
Storage virtualization provides a layer of abstraction between applications and the storage they use. This virtualization makes it possible for physical storage in one or more arrays to appear to the application as if it were a single file system on a host. This kind of virtual representation, known as a data container, can take several forms; disk groups and volumes are two of the most common forms.
With storage virtualization you manage data containers rather than individual blocks of storage. This enables you to enjoy the benefits of enterprise-wide server and storage administration.
Storage virtualization offers the following additional benefits:
  • Reduced costs: applications have flexibility in terms of the storage they can use. While you store mission-critical data on your best and most reliable (and most expensive) storage arrays, you can store other data that is used by the same applications on less expensive media.
  • Better alignment with business needs: storage tiering (or quality of storage service, QoSS) makes it possible for you to provision and use the least expensive storage tier that meets application requirements.
  • Reduced risk: you realize better availability and reliability by isolating applications from storage technology decisions.
  • Better management of storage: Thin provisioning and reclamation lets you manage your storage in a better manner.
Storage Foundation products continue to add features for enhanced storage utilization and performance, for example SmartIO and Flexible Storage Sharing (FSS). The SmartIO feature of Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions supports the use of multi-vendor solid-state drives (SSDs) as a read-write cache to improve overall I/O performance. The FSS feature of Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA) enables network sharing of local storage, cluster wide. The local storage can be in the form of Direct Attached Storage (DAS) or internal disk drives.
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