This paper will overview and detail the critical IT challenges and the ways virtualized storage can complement and enhance virtualized server infrastructures. The paper also explores thin provisioning, VM motion and migration technologies, and the benefits of infrastructure-wide storage services.

The increased use of server virtualization products like VMware, Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V are driving the growth of storage virtualization solutions. These products drive the need for shared storage that can be networked and used by multiple machines. It's an interesting cycle: server virtualization drives the need for greater storage efficiency and I/O performance, resulting in the need for virtual storage pools that can readily serve up disks when and where needed to more application servers which are then virtualized and deployed as they are needed.