A virtual data room (VDR) is a secure online platform that lets you share documents with multiple parties during M&A, due diligence and other financial transactions. VDRs offer a variety of features which make them more beneficial to dealmakers than cloud storage tools and other document sharing apps. They also focus on security which makes them more suitable for sensitive business data than consumer cloud services which have a few security features.
Storage virtualization is the software abstraction layer between physical storage devices and applications. It allows for an efficient and flexible usage of storage resources by reducing redundancy requirements, simplifying data migrations and streamlining advanced storage management functions such as snapshots and replication. It can also cut costs by eliminating the requirement to forecast the future needs for storage and then pay for the entire capacity upfront or purchase and manage multiple appliances in order to meet the demands of growth.
Network-based storage virtualization is the most well-known type of virtualized storage. It offers a pool of storage to applications and servers via the network, like disks in a Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) or Internet Small Computer System Interface storage area network (iSCSI). It often uses redundant array of independent disks (RAID) technology to enhance performance and protect data in the event that a single disk fails, however the physical location of the disk as well as the hardware that is underlying it are not visible to the applications and users.
Storage virtualization using 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 businesses to use more cost-effective storage tiers that might include solid-state drives or hard disk drives with different capacities, and conceal the physical location of these various types of storage from the servers and users.