Storage Virtualization

Organizations are having a highly positive economic experience with storage virtualization, nearly as positive as with server virtualization. Nevertheless, adoption rates are moderate and nearly one-third of organizations are still at the researching stage. This study first examines adoption trends, providing information on how many organizations have storage virtualization in place, how many are in the process of implementing it, and how many are expanding existing implementations. We also look at the economic experience of those that have adopted virtualized storage. We examine ROI as the percentage of organizations that achieve positive or break-even ROI within a two-year period. We also balance the potential ROI against the risks, measured in terms of the percentage that exceed budgets for total cost of ownership. (14 pp., 9 figs.)[Research Byte]

November, 2009