Managing Storage Solutions Easily With Virtualization

At a conservative estimate of $12,000 per terabyte of tier one storage, identifying eight terabytes of unused storage and reallocating it - or simply not unnecessarily purchasing more of it - immediately saved $96,000 for the company concerned.

Crump's white paper is complemented by a free Redbooks paper from IBM entitled `PowerVM Virtualization Managing and Monitoring,' which looks at how IBM's approach of closely integrating virtualisation hardware and software can reap dividends in the corporate storage arena. 

The PowerVM virtualization technology, in case you were wondering, is an overlay system that supports and manages the virtual environments on Power5-, Power5+ and Power6-based systems. 

Available on most IBM System P., Power Systems and BladeCenter servers as optional extras - and supported by the AIX, IBM i, and Linux for Power operating systems - PowerVM is designed to allow companies to aggregate and manage resources using a consolidated, logical view. 

According to IBM, the main benefits of deploying the technology allows users to cut their energy costs by the process of server consolidation, as well as a reducing the costs of existing infrastructures. 

In use, PowerVM virtualization is billed as allowing enterprises to better manage the growth, complexity, and risk of their infrastructure by adopting a best practice approach to managing the virtualized storage environment. 

Whilst the free-to-download 500-plus page paper looks at real-world examples of Power Systems and PowerVM platforms, the ideas it promotes apply to all virtualized storage systems. 

By automating the process of virtualized storage systems management, the paper shows that significant savings can be made both directly and indirectly on a number of cost fronts.