Virtualization is a term that has exploded into the public consciousness over the past few years. Though the promise of the necessary technology has existed for decades, only now can consumers and businesses take full advantage of virtualized storage solutions. Companies that must save massive amounts of data are looking for ways to store the information in a secure and easy-to-retrieve format. Many companies don’t have the time, space or even the patience to deal with large storage systems that are located at their facility. One answer to the problem is virtualized server storage systems. While both of these types of storage have benefits, those who are unfamiliar with the industry have justified fears about how the systems actually work and whether or not their vital information is safe and easily retrieved.

Price to Play

Virtualization often means learning whole suites of software in order to manage the virtual environment, configuring servers and storage to interact with the hypervisor, manager and virtual machines, removing/upgrading server hardware in order to run virtualization. Once a shared storage system is part of a virtualization project, it becomes very expensive very quickly. There are integrated solutions that combine all the component parts of a virtualized environment into one package. Scale Computing has offered what it believes to be the next stage of evolution for the virtualized server industry in its HC3. At the very least, it’s a huge timesaver for IT managers. At best, it’s a revolution that greatly reduces the cost of deploying virtualized environments.

Unorganized data retrieval

Another fear is that when the data is retrieved it will be returned in an unorganized format. The possibility of this occurring is higher if the two systems used to transfer and store the data are not compatible. This can cause the information to be stored in a mixed up fashion or different type of format. Making sure that both the original system and the system being used to store the information are compatible will eliminate this worry.

Unsecured networks

The fear of trade secrets or important health records being available to those outside of the parent company has surfaced as one of the main fears of the trade. Clouds can be either public or private. If a company chooses to use offsite storage for privileged information, they will want to make sure the cloud system they are using is secure and private. This prevents unauthorized third parties from gaining any vital information that may be stored away from the parent facility. If your IT is up to snuff and your firewall game is on point, this is nothing to worry about for on-site storage. You may have to block an errant third-party from accessing your files, but if your information is important enough to hack, then chances are you know who might be looking for it and can pre-empt any attacks.

Compliance with government regulations

With offsite storage becoming one of the biggest trends in data retrieval and storage, government regulations have been put in place to protect not only the consumer, but the IT professionals as well. Requirements and standards must be met by both cloud computing companies and those who offer virtual offsite storage to third parties. The regulations are there to ensure the drivers and components used meet the safety standards required to prevent the misuse of private information.

Like most things in life, virtualized storage carries both benefits and risks. The key is leveraging your talents to outweigh the risks and maximize the benefits. Virtualization is the future of networked storage; that much is clear. The question is when will the rest of the world jump on the ship before it sails into the ether?

About the author: Dawn Altnam lives and works in the Midwest, and she enjoys following the business tech world. After furthering her education, she has spent some time researching her interests and blogging of her discoveries often. Follow her on Twitter! @DawnAltnam