Today’s virtualization technology is definitely transforming businesses from head to toe. Whether by consolidating servers, centralizing services, or creating clouds for optimized resource use or new revenue streams – companies of every size are increasingly virtualizing their environments. This paper discusses the many challenges of a total virtualized solution in light of the integration of virtualized servers and virtualized storage. It then reviews the complementary technologies of the VMware and IBM XIV® Storage System environments, while highlighting IBM XIV features that address the different issues. Real-world use cases provided at the end of the document illustrate IBM XIV server-storage virtualization success and benefits.