SAN virtualization

[Jonathan Caplette_1]

Hi guys,

I got a big question... I'm new to SAN and I would like to know what is Virtualization???

Thanks
Jonathan

[Uwe Zessin]

""virtualization is the abstraction of data from the physical level to logical level""

An easy/ early form of virtualization is RAID. For example, if you put several physical disk drives together to form a RAID-5 set. The server 'sees' a single, logical disk drive that is larger than an individual physical disk drive in the set and the server will not be affected by the failure of a single physical disk drive.

You can get v. in all three levels:

- on the storage array with, e.g. RAID

- in the SAN fabric with in-band virtualization boxes or machinery in the switches

- on the server with, e.g. a host-based RAID implementation or a volume manager like Linux/ HP-UX LVM