Virtualization is a sea change from the days of one image per physical machine. And the benefits are clear, from better hardware utilization to lower costs to easier management. But while the resulting server consolidation is a good thing, it only solves half the problem. You still need to ensure that best-practice storage management is available to both your physical and virtual servers.

This paper discusses the benefits of moving data off of direct attached storage (DAS) inside the server and onto a shared pool of storage in a storage area network (SAN).