Graham Penn, IDC associate vice president for storage in the Asia Pacific, describes storage virtualization as a way to "better use the capacity you have". He points out that storage virtualization is also a good way to save on capital costs. "You get better use of what you've already got because it is all together, and you can manage it from a single point with the same tools, which helps reduce operational costs and manpower," Penn says.

"What we generally find is that, for most companies, their initial significant savings are in data migration - taking data from where it is to somewhere else in the pool. Once you have done that you can start to manage the excess capacity."

There are a number of different ways to deploy virtualization within an enterprise: at the array level, at the server level or within the network. The choice of where the virtualization engine resides is a separate decision depending upon your particular computing environment and is best decided on a case-by-case basis.

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"If IT managers and CIOs aren't worried about the storage, they should be," Penn says. "Storage does not have elastic walls and it will continue to be a concern."