They say humans recognize the smell of chili, but dogs can detect the smell of different spices in the chili. Similarly, IT professionals recognize storage virtualization, but industry experts see clear distinctions between the different types of storage virtualization.

Maybe that will help explain why in a recent survey, enterprise IT professionals selected EMC as the market leader in storage virtualization. The responses mirrored the results of a previous survey where end users selected EMC as the "storage" market leader. The two surveys were in some respects redundant because IT professionals see leading vendors delivering a broad portfolio of technology that in one way or another virtualizes storage including NAS, SSD, RAID, VTL, replication, de-duplication and SANs.

Server virtualization is so new and the rate of deployment is so red-hot that people are saying it's going to drive a similar trend of storage virtualization. But the fact is logical representations of physical storage have been around for a long time - we just haven't used the term "storage virtualization."

To put the evolution of storage virtualization in perspective, IT Brand Pulse proposes there are two distinct eras that we've already experienced and a third well-defined era on the way:

1970 to 2000: Storage Virtualization 1.0 - LUNs to RAID
In 1970, IBM introduced System/370, the first to use logical volumes / virtual storage. And RAID is an acronym first defined by David A. Patterson, Garth A. Gibson and Randy Katz at the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 to describe a redundant array of inexpensive disks. Of course today sophisticated volume managers are an integral part of every operating system and RAID technology is at the heart of every disk subsystem.

2000 to 2012: Storage Virtualization 2.0 - NAS/SANs to VTL
NAS and SANs took off starting at the turn of the millennium and triggered the development of technologies such as VTL, replication and deduplication that take advantage of pooled and/or remote storage. What we're seeing today is leading products and vendors in each of these spaces being assimilated into the broader suites of the major storage vendors.

2012 to 2020: Storage Virtualization 3.0 - Heterogeneous Storage Virtualization to the Cloud
On the horizon for storage is heterogeneous storage virtualization - the ability to pool storage from different vendors. I'm predicting this will not take off until 2012 because today storage vendors are glad to manage other people's storage, but don't want anyone managing "their" storage. However, standards will emerge for managing virtual storage and the market will slowly adjust. Once standards for management of heterogeneous storage are implemented, storage virtualization 3.0 will end with storage as a service being delivered from the cloud.

IBM SVC manage other storage vendors LUN's at host level is one of the Great product at present Heterogeneous storage environment. SVC provides an external storage virtualization function that operates in a consistent manner and provides consistent services for all attached servers, regardless of whether or not those servers are virtualized.

Thu Dec 24, 11:52:00 PM CST

What you predicted for 2012 is already here. Have a look at HDS USP-VM. http://www.hds.com/products/storage-systems/universal-storage-platform-vm.html

Wed Jan 06, 08:49:51 AM CST

Insightful post - I agree with the trend and also that the future is here in terms of heterogeneous storage virtualization: add EMC Invista to the list. Probably a reason why they're the percieved leader. More info at www.InvistaOnBrocade.com

Thu Jan 07, 01:45:20 AM CST

In reality FalconStor Software introduced Heterogeneous storage virtualization in 2000 with the IPStor Platform.

FalconStor's award winning NSS (based on IPStor) offers Heterogeneous storage Virtualization without limiting cross array functions like the big OEM's impose.

Fri Jan 08, 05:46:02 PM CST

I wonder what the value of such survey is. The only conclusion which I can draw is that the end user lack basic understanding of the industry. There are many examples of storage virtualization:
Redundant array of independent disks (RAID)
Volume management
SAN Virtualization (block)
Virtual File systems
Logical Partitioning
SSDs
Virtual tape
Virtual ports
Virtual SANs
However the SAN virtualization is seen as ?storage virtualization? more than other techniques.
The pioneers in SAN virtualization were Datacore and FalconStor. Currently the leading vendors of SAN virtualization are HDS with the USP platform (OEMed as XP x0000 by hp, resold by Sun) and IBM with their SVC. In addition to SAN virtualization the USP supports also logical partitioning and virtual ports. The four ?leaders? I this survey deliver very little storage virtualization if any.

Wed Jan 20, 10:24:44 AM CST

Frank, this is a good guideline to progress of changes in storage, without dipping into minutia. And I agree with the commments abovethus far (funny you can tell whom each company work for). There are many vendors out there that provide the ability to arm wrestle another vendors LUNS and present them as their own. The Cloud version of this is yet to be seen however, I doubt highly that a "standard" will take over, as the nature of business is to have a "unique" differentiating quality that attracts a client and demonstrate to do something that no other can. It goes against our capitalist, and inventive nature in the USA. Homogeneity is boring and not good for the customer. We will all end up much more of a commodity than we all are, which is negative, or end up suing each other into oblivion. I think due to the past 18 months, many many clients would rather not have the responsibility and push out to the cloud, because it seems easier. I think you will find that only certain applications will survive this Cloud, and many will stay at home in the data center. The next 3 years should be interesting, as always in the storage business

Thu Jan 21, 10:26:35 AM CST

I am independent analyst, ex- Gartner Research VP, 40 years in storage
joshkrischer.com

Thu Jan 21, 10:38:21 AM CST