A virtual data room (VDR) is an online secure platform that allows you to share documents with various parties during M&A due diligence, as well as other financial transactions. VDRs provide a range of features that can make them more valuable to dealmakers than cloud storage tools and other document sharing apps. They also emphasize security, which makes them better for sensitive business data than cloud-based services for consumers which have a few security features.

Storage virtualization is the software abstraction layer that connects physical storage devices and applications. It allows for a more efficient and flexible storage resource usage by decreasing the need for redundant hardware, making it easier to manage data migrations, and streamlining advanced management functions like snapshots and replicas. It also reduces costs by eliminating the need to forecast long-term storage requirements and to purchase all needed capacity upfront, or purchase and maintain multiple devices to support growth.

Network-based storage virtualization is the most well-known type of virtualized storage. It presents a pool of storage to servers and applications via the network, for instance disks in a Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) or Internet Small Computer System Interface storage area network (iSCSI). It often makes use of redundant array of independent disks (RAID) technology to improve performance and safeguard data in the event that a single disk fails, but the physical location of the disk and the hardware underlying it are hidden from the applications and users.

Array-based virtualization of storage takes the next step, using an array controller to mix storage from various arrays and display it as a single pool for applications. This allows companies to utilize storage tiers that are less expensive which could include hard disk drives as well as solid-state drives of different capacities. They can also hide the physical storage location from servers and users.

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