I have found a great use case for I/O virtualization thanks to a presentation from Virtensys during the most recent Portland VMUG meeting...

Virtensys: Improving Virtual I/O Management

Virtensys' VIO-4004 - Winner of Network Products Guide 6^th Annual 2011 Hot Companies and Best Products Award, Virtualization category

How the technology is making the jump from the server realm into the application, mobile and database worlds.

MANCHESTER, England and BEAVERTON, Ore. – March 22, 2011 – Virtensys™, Ltd, a provider of I/O virtualization solutions, announced today a joint webinar with Virtual Instruments, the leader in SAN and Virtual Infrastructure Optimization. Titled “Your Fibre Channel SAN: Are you making the most of it?” the webinar will disprove the myth that Fibre Channel (FC) Storage Area Networks (SANs) are expensive and challenging to manage. Stephen Spellicy, director of marketing for Virtensys, and Archie Hendryx, solutions consultant with Virtual Instruments, will talk about new ways to optimize and consolidate FC connectivity while maintaining the superior reliability and performance of Fibre Channel.

The webcast will take place on March 30, 2011, at 9 a.m. PT / 12 a.m. ET / 4 p.m. GMT; to register, go to http://bit.ly/grin09. The webcast will also teach attendees how to:

• Reduce the amount of HBAs, FC cables, SAN ports and storage ports while concurrently improving application response time and overall availability
  
• Simplify server FC I/O provisioning, enabling a more agile and scalable deployment model
• Learn how to drive substantially higher utilization of existing assets
• Identify FC SAN storage-related problems before they affect users
• Reduce the time it takes for troubleshooting a FC SAN storage environment from days to minutes
• Reduce the OPEX and CAPEX of existent FC SAN storage infrastructures by 50 percent or more, and still maintain performance and availability SLAs