When you think of data centers, you probably picture a huge room full of buzzing hardware. While that is a version of a data center, there are other versions as well.
Data centers provide the computer power to run applications, storage for data, and networking to keep employees connected. Traditionally, data centers have been on-premise, but cloud-based alternatives are starting to take over.
The data center isn't going down without a fight though. Instead, data centers are changing to meet the needs of organizations. They're becoming more modern, software-based, and accommodating cloud models.
All of this is to say that we're now entering the era of the software-defined data center.
What is a Software-Defined Data Center?
Before we go any further, we need to define a software-defined data center.
Besides software-defined storage, there are also software-defined data centers. A software-defined data center (SDDC) is a data storage facility in which the infrastructure is virtualized and delivered as a service.
SDDC is expected to gain market share in the coming years as more companies begin to adopt it.
Software-Defined Data Center Architecture
The concept of SDDC is still relatively new but is gaining in popularity. There are three major building blocks of SDDC:
- Network virtualization. Network resources are split by the available bandwidth into independent channels that can be assigned and reassigned to servers and devices in real-time.
- Storage virtualization. Physical storage from multiple network storage devices is combined into what appears to be a single storage device.
- Server virtualization. Individual physical servers are masked from server users.
Software-Defined Data Center vs Hyperconverged
They both have the same goal: to add efficiency, flexibility, and scalability to storage. While they have the same goal, each infrastructure has a different process of getting there.
Hyperconverged may have been around longer, but SDDC is gaining market share as organizations continue to look for speedy solutions to support their business growth and continuity.
Software-Defined Data Center vs Cloud
A software-defined data center is focused on the architecture and standard interfaces. The cloud focuses on services and capabilities. But, SDDC provides the components to build out a cloud, as we stated earlier.
Basically, SDDC is used to build a cloud.
Software Defined Data Center Benefits
As with anything, there are benefits and challenges to software-defined data centers.
Most of the benefits associated with SDDC center around the flexibility, scalability, and security available. SDDC allows organizations their own private cloud — aka better security and control of hosted data. But organizations aren't limited to their private cloud since SDDCs can support hybrid cloud setups as well.
By nature, software-defined data centers are able to use the elasticity, scalability, and agility of cloud setups to automate functions through software. Automation is one of the key factors in security.
In addition, since the resources are software-based, they can be pooled and provisioned to operate separately from physical IT infrastructure while controlling workload management.
One complication of SDDCs would be that they can be complex. If components are pulled from multiple vendors, it can be difficult to plan and integrate an SDDC architecture. This can be alleviated by choosing a vendor who already has the architecture in place.
How Anteris Can Help
We're staying in front of the data storage trends. We've seen what is coming and built out our data center to meet the future needs of our Clients.
While we might have said that software-defined data centers are a newer idea, they are the core of what we do at Anteris. Our data center is entirely powered by SDDC.
We can combine hardware to create greater resilience. We can do this in various ways, such as linking onsite servers to our data center or installing multiple servers on the same site so that if one fails, others are online. These solutions could easily cost up to $100,000, putting a significant strain on your bottom line. At Anteris, we've already made these investments—and more–allowing our Clients to access enterprise-level technology at a fraction of the cost.
That's the benefit of DCaaS: turning what would usually be a considerable capital expense into an operating expense.
If you're ready to talk about upgrading your IT setup or have more questions, we're here.
Let us make your technology freeing, not frustrating.
