As companies like VMware and Intel make acquisitions like Nicira and Virtutech and introduce new products, the notion of the software-defined data center is becoming more and more clear to the broader IT audience.
According to Steve Herrod, CTO of VMware, the software-defined data center is an environment in which “all infrastructure is virtualized and delivered as a service, and the control of this datacenter is entirely automated by software.”
Discussed recently at IP Expo in London, the software-defined data center is a vision of using off-the-shelf commodity hardware and achieving flexibility and scalability through software. This creates a more nimble infrastructure that can keep up with the constantly changing demands put on it by new applications such as open-source databases or big data analytics.
Unlocking Possibilities with Software
The comparative ease of use that comes along with the software-defined data center is compelling. Such environments simplify complicated infrastructures, providing IT professionals with more control and easier management of their environment through the software layer.
Previously, specialists were required to handle proprietary, individual elements of data center upkeep, from server deployments to networking to mechanical storage arrays. This placed strains on IT budgets that were exacerbated by the need to scale out architectures as data demand increased and with the performance of essential applications increasing exponentially in every cycle of Moore’s Law.
With the software defined data center, IT professionals have significantly more freedom to work with the commodity hardware they are comfortable with, the software taking on much of the maintenance that once needed on-site, specialized skill. This frees these experts to be more creative and proactive, allowing them to offer new solutions for business problems, versus living in constant maintenance mode, running after problems that software can now address with little or no human intervention.
As infrastructures continue to be virtualized, housing more operating systems on physical machines to do the work of multiple servers, with switching and routing taking place at the software layer, the need for data to supply those infrastructures is evermore critical.
