Objective: Evaluate and Assess the Risks and benefits of emerging storage technologies to fit the needs of Virtual Environments. Scenario: Tradition Enterprise SAN Storage arrays have been a platform of choice for deploying Virtualization in the last decade. These platforms are reaching their End-of-Life and are up for a refresh. There is a latent need to transform storage environments into Software-Defined Storage Architecture to meet the new capacity, availability and performance needs. Approach: There Several approaches to Software-Defined Storage Architecture: Factory Built Convergence Platforms with VMware Converged Storage Stack (e.g. HP EVO:RAIL) Flash Virtualization Platforms(e.g. PernixData) - Extend the Life of traditional storage Server side flash to provide increased performance and capacity. Server Hardware with Bundle Storage Virtual Appliances (HP StorVirtual) Commodity Hardware with Converged Software (e.g. Quanta) Purpose-Built Storage Appliances (e.g. N...