Storage virtualization could mean big business for SMEs

Storage virtualization should help smaller businesses to afford the functionality of higher-end storage systems, and to gain better control of existing investments, Gartner Inc. said last week.

Josh Kirscher, vice-president of research at Gartner, said that, while the idea of virtualization as an enabling technique was not new, increased emphasis is bringing to reality what theorists have been saying about information life cycle management (ILM) for years.