A virtual dataroom (VDR) lets you securely share online documents with multiple parties in M&A, due-diligence and other financial transactions. VDRs come with a variety of features that make them more valuable to dealmakers than cloud storage applications and other document sharing tools. They are also focused on security, making them a better option for business data that is sensitive than consumer cloud services with only a few security features.
Storage virtualization is an abstraction layer that acts as a bridge between physical storage devices and applications. It allows for more efficient and flexible storage resource by cutting down on the requirement for redundant hardware, easing data migrations, and streamlining more advanced management functions like snapshots and replicas. It also helps cut costs by eliminating the requirement to predict future storage requirements, pay for all needed capacity in advance or purchase and maintain multiple appliances to meet the demands of growth.
The most common virtualized storage is network-based virtualization. It is a way to take a pool of storage, like disks in a Fibre Channel (FC) or Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) storage area network (SAN) and then presents it to applications and servers over the network. It uses redundant arrays of independent disks technology (RAID) to enhance performance and safeguard data in the case that a single drive fails. However, the physical location of the disk and the individual hardware are kept from users and applications.
Storage virtualization using arrays is the next step. A storage controller can be employed to combine the storage of multiple arrays into a single pool and present it to applications. This allows companies to utilize more efficient storage tiers, which may include solid-state drives and hard disk drives of various capacities, and conceal the physical location of these different types of storage from the servers and users.