What Does Storage Consolidation Mean?
Storage consolidation is the process of centralizing, sharing and optimizing data storage resources among multiple users and applications. It is a broad concept that enables the design and construction of storage infrastructure for efficient management and maximum use, with the lowest storage hardware and management costs.
Storage consolidation is also referred to as storage convergence.
Techopedia Explains Storage Consolidation
The key objective of storage consolidation is to minimize storage requirements while using current resources to a maximum. It is achieved through various techniques and processes, such as storage server consolidation, centralized storage resources and management.
For example, when using SAN, one of the storage consolidation technologies, an organization employs a central storage location that is simultaneously accessed by multiple users and applications. This approach also helps to eliminate storage waste and costs. Traditionally speaking, each computer/server/node has its separate storage media, which was never completely used. However, with storage consolidation, a single storage server stores data for multiple application servers and/or users.