Chapter 1. Introduction to storage virtualization 5
/SM590000Data reduction techniques for space efficiency, such as thin provisioning, Data Reduction 
Pools (DRP), deduplication, and IBM Real-time Compression™ (RtC). Today, open 
systems typically use less than 50% of the provisioned storage capacity. IBM Spectrum 
Virtualize, can enable significant savings, increase effective capacity of storage systems 
up to five times, and decrease the floor space, power, and cooling required by the storage 
system.
IBM Storwize V7000 is a scalable solution running on a highly available platform that can use 
diverse back-end storage systems to provide all the benefits to various attached hosts.
1.2  Benefits of using IBM Spectrum Virtualize
The storage virtualization functions of IBM Spectrum Virtualize are a powerful tool in the 
hands of storage administrators. However, for an organization to fully realize benefits of 
storage virtualization, its implementation must be the result of a process that begins with 
identifying the organization’s goals. For a storage virtualization project to be a success, the 
organization must identify what it wants to achieve before it starts to think how to implement 
the solution.
Today, organizations are searching for affordable and efficient ways to store, use, protect, and 
manage their data. Additionally, a storage environment is required to have an easy to manage 
interface and be sufficiently flexible to support wide range of applications, servers, and 
mobility requirements. Although business demands change quickly, some recurring client 
concerns drive adoption of storage virtualization, including the following examples:
/SM590000Growing data center costs
/SM590000Inability of IT organizations to respond quickly to business demands
/SM590000Poor asset usage
/SM590000Poor availability and resultant unsatisfactory (for the clients) or challenging (for the 
providers) service levels
/SM590000Lack of skilled staff for storage administration
The importance of addressing the complexity of managing storage networks is clearly visible 
in the results of industry analyses of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of storage networks. 
Typically, storage costs are only about 20% of the TCO. Most of the remaining costs relate to 
managing storage systems.
In a non-virtualized storage environment, every system is an “island” that must be managed 
separately. In large SAN environments, the sheer number of separate and different 
management interfaces and lack of unified view of the whole environment jeopardizes an 
organization’s ability to manage their storage as a single entity and to maintain the current 
view of the system state.
IBM Storwize V7000, running IBM Spectrum Virtualize software, reduces the number of 
separate environments that must be managed down to a single system. After the initial 
configuration of the back-end storage subsystems, all of the day-to-day storage management 
operations are performed by way of a single graphical user interface. At the same time, 
administrators gain access to the rich functionality set provided by IBM Spectrum Virtualize, 
whether particular features are natively available on the virtualized storage systems.