In the digital transformation era where physical commodities are transformed into digital assets, businesses are investing in software-defined IT to turn infrastructure from a tactical necessity into a strategic differentiator.
To optimise the benefits of their investments, companies are turning to software-defined data centres (SDDC) to boost efficiencies and availability, enhance business agility and reduce costs. Why the data centre? It remains an area that has largely been touted as costly to manage, expensive to grow and nearly impossible to keep in check when data sprawl takes hold.
Looking ahead at the 'cloud-defined' future ICT as a whole is moving to, one can also say the SDDC forms the foundation on which the bricks and mortar - or rather clouds - are built from and around, making it the most logical place to start.
According to recent research, over half of EMEA channel partners and systems integrators (54%) expect SDDC to be a significant trend within the next 24 months*. However, limiting the adoption of SDDC is a common obstacle for technologies that are seen as revolutionary, hype or - more specifically - software-defined hype.
Software-defined future
The reality is the entire notion and concept of software-defined "insert a technology" is fast gaining traction. What this is translating into is a push by software vendors to profess to sell a "software-defined strategy", and for hardware vendors to either vehemently refute its validity, although this contingent is shrinking, or to start partnering with companies which can help them be part of this future.
A key challenge for businesses is that not many people actually understand what an SDDC is, what it offers, how it is different to a normal data centre, and then more importantly, what it is not. Looking at the true benefits of the SDDC as cited above, beyond the hype, and doing the maths of what reducing the physical will save the business, then the argument for the SDDC becomes compelling.
From my point of view, although it is the foundation to the cloud, the progression to an SDDC is just a logical step in the evolutionary chain that is IT. Looking back, it began with the introduction of server virtualisation, where the industry took many and reduced it to few, and instead of reducing output, significantly bolstered it. Now apply that to the cloud and software-defined computing, and it all leads to an era where the shackles of physical computing will be shaken.
Before server virtualisation, a workload on a server was tied to hardware, so even if capacity was not 100% utilised, it could not be used elsewhere on the network. Server virtualisation essentially enabled an optimal matching of need to resource, driving efficiency across a network.
This is now being applied to SDDC, as when using it, the virtualisation scenario plays out for compute as well as other network resources. A comprehensive SDDC roll-out includes virtualised server, storage, networking and security. It is also pinned to need as opposed to capacity.
Virtual velocity
When resources including storage, networking and security are virtualised, businesses become more agile as well as efficient. With SDDC, companies can rapidly deploy data centres so that what may have taken weeks with physical hardware can take minutes with SDDC.
The progression to an SDDC is just a logical step in the evolutionary chain that is IT.
Look at some examples of where an SDDC approach has assisted companies. When global retail and sports company, Columbia Sportswear, deployed an SDDC, it reduced the time to make changes in its IT infrastructure from over a month to a matter of hours. A key benefit to the company has been a dramatic change in the way IT interacts with the wider business.
So, to summarise, with SDDC, since all resources are virtual, they can be automatically deployed with little to no human involvement. This allows for IT staff time to be shifted from being used for application provisioning and deployment to more strategic efforts. Hardware maintenance costs by IT staff can be eliminated with an SDDC.
Operating and capital expenses can also be reduced, as physical resources can be consolidated and costs for cooling and powering data centres are lowered. This is perhaps best highlighted by Internet security provider Symantec, which deployed an SDDC to consolidate 12 servers from multiple regions into two. In just over a year, the security giant gained an additional 11 000 weeks to spend more time solving customer cases and reproductions.
Looking at the bare bone facts, deploying an SDDC allows a company to combine enhanced efficiency, increased availability and cost reduction, which in my mind are features that are valued in any era.
* Brocade, Software Defined Research, 24 November 2014
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