A virtual dataroom (VDR) lets you securely share documents online with many parties in M&A due-diligence, M&A, and other financial transactions. VDRs offer a broad array of features that make them more useful to dealmakers than cloud storage apps and other document sharing tools. They also place a premium on security which makes them more suitable for confidential business information than consumer cloud services which have a few security features.
Storage virtualization is a kind of software abstraction layer that connects physical storage devices, and applications. It allows for more flexible and efficient use of storage resources by reducing redundancy requirements and facilitating data migrations and streamlining complex storage management functions like snapshots and replication. It also helps reduce expenses by removing the need to forecast future storage requirements and pay for all the required capacity up front or buy and maintain multiple devices to support growth.
The most popular type of virtualized storage is network-based storage virtualization. It offers a pool of storage to servers and applications over the network, like disks within the Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) or Internet Small Computer System Interface storage area network (iSCSI). It makes use of redundant arrays independent disks technology (RAID) to improve performance and protect data in the case that one drive fails. However, the exact physical location of the disk as well as the hardware that it is attached to are hidden from users and applications.
Storage virtualization with arrays is the next step. A storage controller is used to combine storage from multiple arrays into one pool and present it to applications. This allows companies to utilize storage tiers that are less expensive, which may include hard disk drives as well as solid-state drives that have different capacities. They can also conceal the physical location from the eyes of servers and users.