Robb is a freelance writer in Los Angeles.

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Intelligence: Where should you put itt?

Depending on which vendor you speak to, you'll hear a different opinion on where storage intelligence and virtualization should really be placed. McData and Brocade, being switch vendors, claim that the switch is the most logical place. HDS, with its focus on disk arrays, insists that intelligence must reside in the storage controller. And Cisco, the king of networking, suggests -- surprise, surprise -- that the network should contain all storage virtualization.

Such a divergence of opinion may well be a factor in the slow corporate adoption of storage intelligence. According to a study of 269 enterprises by Framingham, Mass.-based IDC, only 8 percent are doing any virtualization at all, while 23 percent plan to implement some in the next 12 months. If you focus solely on companies with 10,000 or more employees, however, usage rises to 19 percent, with another 31 percent saying they plan to add a virtual component within a year.