Flexible storage provisioning

Embodiments may enable enterprise cloud based computing infrastructures to instantiate child virtual machines that may be linked to parent virtual machines where the child virtual machines and the parent virtual machines share storage that resides on a high-speed storage area network. Performance metrics of the child virtual machines may be monitored and collected for a period of time generating performance characteristics of the child virtual machines. In at least one of the various embodiments, if the monitoring period may have expired that child virtual machine may be moved to a storage pool that may be selected based on the performance characteristics of the child virtual machine. In at least one of the various embodiments, if the child virtual may be moved from the high-speed SAN to a storage pool the linked between the child virtual machine and the parent virtual machine may be broken.