Virtual machine technology is having a major impact on storage networking, data protection and disaster recovery in the data center. Virtualization greatly simplifies tasks such as physical server upgrades, bringing new applications online and transparently moving virtual servers to other server platforms based on performance needs while providing a leap in efficiency. ESG is aware of companies that are consolidating large numbers of physical servers with virtualization--leading to reduced capital expenditures and floor space, as well as a reduction in power and cooling consumption. In addition to the consolidation benefits, server virtualization also simplifies disaster recovery, as this report will discuss.

Data protection means different things to different people. It includes disaster recovery (DR), system availability, application uptime and site failover. While technologies such as remote mirroring and snapshots are widely associated with DR, most end-users are still relying on tape as their primary data protection solution. Tape does serve a purpose, but it is also often cited as an encumbrance to efficiency.

This report examines the impact that virtualization has on data protection and disaster recovery and the need for highly virtualized storage within this context. It outlines the various factors that each end-user should consider as they evaluate and implement data protection strategies.