While we’ve heard about storage virtualization for years, wide scale deployment has not yet materialized. The technology was supposed to deliver benefits such as reduced management costs and better storage utilization, but for all the promise adoption among users remains low, its perceived cost and complexity remain high, and, frankly, the marketing hype has left users confused over the supposed advantages. In 2006, however, this will start to change. Virtualization will emerge this year as a useful tool, though it may not appear in quite the same form we’re accustomed to. To understand this transition, it helps to dig into what virtualization really is.