Compared with traditional data centers characterized by dependence on hardware infrastructure for managing storage, compute, and network functions, Software Defined Data Centers (SDDC) extend a virtual layer on top of traditional data center infrastructure that performs programmatic management functions. Through abstraction, resource pooling, and automation, the virtualized layer provides a central toolset for managing virtualized resources separate from underlying infrastructure.
Because traditional data center design required that infrastructure be centrally housed, data centers typically were of one type, on-premise in a single location, acting as the hub of all IT operations. This has changed with SDDC.
Because abstraction allows data center resources to pool from multiple locations, organizations have many options when configuring their SDDC. The range of configurations can span from on-premise infrastructure options to both public and private clouds, and subsequently combinations forming hybrid clouds. And as can be expected from technologies in the cloud, SDDCs can be remotely managed through APIs and web interfaces, a significant business advantage over traditional data centers.
Software defined data centers afford several benefits to both the data center administrators, but also users. Arguably, traditional data centers will become too expensive to efficiently operate, and will need to adopt the profit improving techniques used in their virtualized counterparts. SDDCs have several benefits:
There are a few challenges when adopting SDDC. Many technical aspects are custom built, and require expertise, however, the main challenges are primarily human in nature.
Software-Defined Data Centers (SDDC) extend traditional data center configurations through a virtualization layer. Virtualization is a software approach to creating IT services separate, or unbound, from designated hardware. To do this a hypervisor is used which is responsible for creating virtual environments and pooling and sharing hardware resources. Hypervisors can sit on top of an operating system or be installed directly on hardware infrastructure. While resources are partitioned on-demand to each virtual environment, users interact with these environments, known as Virtual Machines (VMs) as they normally would. A single computer running virtualization software can have multiple VMs running, and each VM can potentially run their own operating system, enabling unmatched system flexibility.
The main feature of SDDC, which is virtualized infrastructure that abstracts connectivity, storage, compute, and security, essentially the business end of a data center, while allowing the back-end to be managed and optimized independently, brings about many benefits to organizations that rely on or invest heavily in data center infrastructure
SDDCs will become standard practice in the future. Making the transition from traditional data center operations to SDDC operations, though, requires forethought. While every SDDC migration journey is different, the following 3 points should be considered when deciding to undertake the migration.