Non-volatile Memory Express over Fabric (NVMeOF) using Volume Management Device (VMD) schemes and associated methods, systems and software. The schemes are implemented in a data center environment including compute resources in compute drawers and storage resources residing in pooled storage drawers that are communicatively couple via a fabric. Compute resources are composed as compute nodes or virtual machines/containers running on compute nodes to utilize remote storage devices in pooled storage drawers, while exposing the remote storage devices as local NVMe storage devices to software running on the compute nodes. This is facilitated by virtualizing the system's storage infrastructure through use of hardware-based components, firmware-based components, or a combination of hardware/firmware- and software-based components. The schemes support the use of remote NVMe storage devices using an NVMeOF protocol and/or use of non-NVMe storage devices using NVMe emulation.