64 Understanding the IBM TotalStorage Open Software Family
3.1 Storage virtualization overview
Storage virtualization techniques are becoming increasingly more prevalent in
the IT industry today. Storage virtualization forms one of several levels of
virtualization in a storage network, and can be described as the abstraction of
physical volumes of data storage to a logical level.
Storage virtualization addresses the increasing complexity of managing storage
while reducing the associated costs. Its main purpose is the full exploitation of
the benefits promised by a SAN. Virtualization enables data sharing, ensuring
higher availability, providing disaster tolerance, improving performance, allowing
for consolidation of resources, providing po