Virtualization allows the physical network I/O switch and server blade hardware to be pooled and shared across multiple applications, something data centers in recent years have been turning to. as mentioned in this Embedded.com article, with I/O Virtualization, servers – virtual or physical – require connectivity and bandwidth to clients, other servers, networked storage and to their local Direct-Attached Storage (DAS).
“Initially focusing on managing server sprawl through physical hardware consolidation, this is now becoming a critical technology supporting business agility and continuity, and is a key component of the ‘cloud,’ which aims to deliver flexible opex-based application execution.
“I/O Virtualization (IOV) follows the same concept. Servers – virtual or physical – require connectivity and bandwidth to clients, other servers, networked storage and to their local Direct-Attached Storage (DAS).
“Instead of providing each server with dedicated adaptors, cables, network ports and disks, IOV separates the physical I/O from the servers, leaving them as highly compact and space efficient pure compute resources such as 1U servers or server blades. The I/O from multiple servers can now be consolidated into an ‘IOV Switch’.”
