This IDC study discusses how the deployment of NCs and NSC for volume, file, and tape virtualization will play a key role in helping companies pool storage resources across multiple classes of storage and applications while shielding administrators from the complexities of configuring storage systems and managing backups.

"Over the next five years, networked controllers and the software that runs on them will emerge as a critical competitive battleground in the storage industry," says Richard Villars, vice president of IDC's Storage Systems.