The transformation of the enterprise data centre is being fuelled by the adoption of virtualisation technologies, and NetApp, VMware and Cisco will play a large role in the furthering of its evolution, says technology solutions and people resources integrator, Intuate Group.
In January 2010, the three industry stalwarts announced that they would be expanding their existing collaboration to deliver new design architectures that help customers achieve more efficient, dynamic and secure virtualised data centres.
“A tremendous opportunity exists for Cisco, NetApp and VMware, to enable real change in the data centre,” says Mark Edwards, director: products and services at Intuate Group. “With virtualisation of the network, server and storage infrastructure radically reshaping today's data centre, the data centre of the future - or the dynamic data centre - will have to prove itself in providing the foundation for both private and public clouds along with the ability to move data and applications between these clouds.
“The IT industry is experiencing much change as companies seek flexible, unified computing architectures that can deliver dynamic, on-demand services cost effectively.”
Current data centre architectures are built around a complex, heterogeneous collection of servers and storage systems that result in poor utilisation and captive resources. They require multiple provisioning toolsets, data management models and teams of people to manage.
In addition, massive data growth, challenging economic conditions, and the physical limitations of power, heat and space exert extreme pressure on IT staff, he says.
“The dynamic data centre has been created using a holistic approach that allows the network and the applications it supports to work together in the most efficient way possible,” says Edwards. “The primary goals of the collaboration are to reduce costs, improve agility and increase business both within and between data centres.
“These goals have been achieved through the simplification of the overall data centre architecture, a reduction in management complexity and the enablement of zero cost provisioning - all of which was made possible due to the technologies available through Cisco, VMware and NetApp.”
The secure, multi-tenancy solution offered by these companies is built on close alliances with tight integration of shared server, network and storage services. In collaborating, they can ease acquisition and speed deployment for customers. Vertical integration is delivered via a proven model and the bundle offering delivers financial, operational and strategic value that includes co-operative services, reference architectures and blueprints for fast deployment.
What the dynamic data centre will provide is an answer to the shift from static single-purpose IT systems to new on-demand IT services. These architectures will help businesses achieve their goals faster, while minimising the risk of moving to a new virtualised data centre.
Together, these companies offer synergies that simplify the deployment of infrastructure and applications, says Edwards. “Their unified solution operates as a services-oriented architecture and guarantees application isolation with proven, integrated technologies that deliver end-to-end security to protect digital assets,” he adds.
“Security within each layer, compliance features and auditability are bottom-line requirements in any infrastructure - and even more so as they are converged. By pre-integrating resources, the solution delivers these services efficiently.
“Along with its end-to-end security, this solution's modular design makes it fast and easy to deploy for existing applications as well as for new ones. It offers a solution-focused answer to infrastructure services, whether they are being delivered by IT departments to customers or by service providers to different companies,” he concludes.
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