Software-defined storage: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:22, 29 January 2023

Revision as of 01:24, 29 March 2023

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The storage hypervisor manages, virtualizes and controls all storage resources, allocating and providing the needed attributes (performance, availability) and services (automated [[Thin provisioning|provisioning]], [[Snapshot (computer storage)|snapshots]], [[Replication (computer science)|replication]]), either directly or over a storage network, as required to serve the needs of each individual environment.

The term "hypervisor" within "storage hypervisor" is so named because it goes beyond a supervisor,<ref>{{cite web|title=Hypervisor glossary definition|url=http://www.xen.org/files/xen_user_manual.pdf|work=Xen v2.0 for x86 Users' Manual (PDF)|publisher=Xen.org on August 20, 2011|access-date=October 4, 2017|archive-date=October 5, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111005054849/http://www.xen.org/files/xen_user_manual.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> it is conceptually a level higher than a supervisor and therefore acts as the next higher level of management and intelligence that sits above and spans its control over device-level storage controllers, disk arrays, and virtualization middleware.

A storage hypervisor has also been defined as a higher level of storage virtualization <ref>{{cite web|title=SearchStorage.com definition|url=http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storage-virtualization|publisher=What is storage virtualization? Definition on SearchStorage.com}}</ref> software, providing a "Consolidation and cost: Storage pooling increases utilization and decreases costs. Business availability: Data mobility of virtual volumes can improve availability. Application support: Tiered storage optimization aligns storage costs with required application service levels".<ref>{{cite book|title=IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center|date = 6 March 2015|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_pbABgAAQBAJ&pg=PA28|publisher=IBM Redbooks|isbn = 9780738440439}}</ref> The term has also been used in reference to use cases including its reference to its role with storage virtualization in disaster recovery<ref>{{cite web|title=SearchDisasterRecovery Article|url=http://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/news/2240037212/The-cloud-and-virtualization-havent-make-IT-disaster-recovery-plans-obsolete|website=SearchDisasterRecovery.com |date=June 23, 2011 |first=Todd |last=Erickson|access-date=October 4, 2017|archive-date=October 4, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171004085129/http://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/news/2240037212/The-cloud-and-virtualization-havent-make-IT-disaster-recovery-plans-obsolete|url-status=dead}}</ref> and, in a more limited way, defined as a volume migration capability across SANs.<ref>{{cite web |title=ComputerWorld Article |url=http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/368886/compellent_adds_virtualization_hardware_upgrades_its_san/ |date=November 23, 2010 |first=Lucas |last=Mearian |access-date=October 4, 2017 |archive-date=October 4, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171004140023/https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/368886/compellent_adds_virtualization_hardware_upgrades_its_san/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Server vs. storage hypervisor===