Is Virtual Storage required for datacenter agility?

I've had a number of discussions with suppliers of software for both virtual processing and management of virtualized resources. In almost every case, something very important is being left unsaid during these discussions.

The representatives of these company present their case with the unsaid assumption that storage containing system images, applications and data are as agile as they claim processing is when their products are deployed.

It would appear to me that the last thing an IT decision-maker would want is to have processing automated and orchestrated by products such as those offered by, Cassatt, Scalent Systems, Racemi, VMLogix, Novell, Virtual Iron, or VMware, while storage (application and data files) was tied to specific systems. After all, if those systems became unavailable, the storage they managed would become unavailable as well.

In my view, it would be very wise to "cut storage free" of specific systems for the same reasons an organization would present for making processing agile. Some of these reasons include better performance, better levels of scaleability, increased levels of reliability, reduced costs and the ability to establish a unified management and control domain.

Why do you suppose they spend so little time on the fact that orchestrated processing requires an agile, managed, reliable storage infrastructure?

I'm off to a Microsoft event in Orlando, FL, today. If I learn anything really new or interesting, I'll post something from there.