Recently I talked about what I see as the next 'waves of virtualization' taking the industry, I talked about I/O Virtualization as a key (maybe THE key) cornerstone, so I thought it might make sense to describe just what it is and why it's important. Like all forms of virtualization, the physical world is masked and abstracted into a virtual representation, allowing for higher utilization or increased agility, etc. For I/O, the physical world is typically defined by dedicated connections to Input/Output (I/O) devices such as disks, networks, CD-ROMs, consoles, etc.