What does server virtualization for free mean for storage virtualization?

Opinion, more server virtualization projects will feed storage virtualization.

Is server virtualization becoming a commodity?
The battle at the virtual server market is heating up and this is a question being asked. So what happened? Citrix is now making XenServer free since it has had a hard time making inroads against the giant VMware and Microsoft’s Hyper-V initiatives (see articles below).A benefit of the industry cost battle is that it helps fuel more virtualization projects…which obviously stresses the need for shared storage SANs and the high cost of the SAN (often the largest cost item - typically costing well over $75k). Implementing a SAN therefore becomes the major hurdle to virtualization deployments. This consolidation of servers results in 2 major pain points - it concentrates I/O performance (slows it down) and since all the applications are running on fewer servers it magnifies the impact of interruptions on business continuity -the 'All the eggs in one basket' impact: InformationWeek - Virtualization Driving SMB/SME Storage . This battle at the virtual server level bodes well for DataCore… since we overcome these critical pain points.Citrix XensServer is now Free (XenCenter, XenMotion, Resource Pools, etc. )Check out this overview: http://www.virtualization.info/2009/02/citrix-xenserver-is-now-free-xencenter.html