Provisioning and managing storage is a key job role for IT administrators in organizations of all sizes. Data is a business asset that must be available, accessible, and secure; otherwise, the business won’t survive in today’s competitive marketplace.

In traditional IT infrastructures, managing storage can be a complex task because data is often stored using a wide range of storage technologies that might include an iSCSI storage area network (SAN), network-attached storage (NAS) devices, direct-attached storage (DAS) devices, Just a Bunch Of Disks (JBOD) enclosures, and even removable storage devices such as USB drives. Some of these technologies, such as SANs, might require special expertise to administer, which can further complicate the task of storage administration.