Managing data is difficult. In today’s hybrid cloud environments, data is spread across a large and complex data fabric encompassing on-premise storage and cloud infrastructure. This can lead to data becoming siloed and difficult to manage. With the ever-present threat of cyberattacks, it is more important than ever to ensure you have full visibility over your data storage and a simple way to configure your data for extreme resilience.

IBM® Storage Virtualize is one of the key components of IBM FlashSystem® and SAN Volume Controller. Consider it the operating system in which all components are managed within this system.

With hybrid and multiple array instances becoming more diverse and their management becoming increasingly complex, the value of a centralized and consistent management platform for all storage becomes all the more relevant. IBM is able to accomplish this by the functionality of IBM Storage Virtualize instances, which can be created on any platform running the storage. So, if storage is replicated on AWS, an instance of IBM Storage Virtualize created on AWS as a Virtual Machine creates an instance of visualization into the storage with all the management of that data becoming consistent across the board. This solution works on-premises and in the cloud with IBM Cloud®, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

Virtual instances can be on VMware with a plug-in into vCenter, as well as on OpenShift virtualization and Kubernetes. It can also be automated with Ansible. Deployments can use replication for native IP into Azure, AWS and IBM Cloud. Additionally, there is added capability of application-aware failover and failback through VMware Cloud automation integration.

With it, you can control one of the most powerful storage arrays in the industry, including end to end encryption, deduplication, data reduction, in-line error code detection, as well as key Safeguarded Copy functionality. The functionality of IBM Storage Virtualize allows you to create virtualized versions of the controller so that the same operating methodology carries across all instances across your entire environment, including the capacity to incorporate the same control over cloud instances.

Below is a list of links to explore:

• IBM Storage Virtualize for Public Cloud
• IBM Storage Virtualize Documentation
• IBM Storage Virtualize Redbooks
• IBM Storage Virtualize with FlashSystem
• Storage Virtualization

IBM Storage Virtualize comes in two differing flavors depending on your requirements. Either an on-premises iteration and a public cloud version.