Inefficient storage utilization and unnecessary storage purchases have led to the adoption of storage virtualization solutions, which use abstraction to separate physical disk space from the logical assignment of that space. Virtualization allows the storage available on multiple systems (often SAN storage subsystems) to be aggregated so that disk space forms a single logical resource. The virtualized storage pool is then provisioned for use by users, servers and applications.

Virtualization brings efficiency to the storage environment. By pooling storage resources into a single resource, administrators can manage all of the space included in the pool regardless of its location