Ah, Fall SNW - that wonderful time of year where we all sit naked around the campfire and chant about virtualization. But I have to tell you that I’m about to snap. The word virtualization means nothing - or everything. Virtualization is just the concept of mapping something real to something virtual. Heck, SCSI drives have done that since the beginning. And that’s pretty much the main point of RAID controllers. For the last several years it seems that virtualization has been the word folks use to describe the purpose of external iSCSI or FC controllers. For example, these controllers take arrays and break them into “chunks” that are doled out to various hosts and servers. Sometimes virtualization is defined as snapshot or remote mirroring. And sometimes it is applied to MFAs (mid fabric appliances) that combine and virtualize heterogeneous storage, i.e., storage from different vendors.

Virtualization is simply an overused word that has stopped carrying any meaning, and we need to start being more specific about what we’re talking about. But if you’re finding it difficult to go cold turkey, please stop my SNW “intervention” booth where I’ll be giving out complimentary slaps to the first ten people that ask me about virtualization. I’m there for you, man.

TT

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 19th, 2005 and is filed under General, Advisor - Tom Treadway. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.