What is the real software-defined data center?

At present, IT infrastructure and its operations are increasingly complex, and people often adopt cloud computing and virtualization technology to meet a variety of business needs. Over the past 10 years, server virtualization has redeployed, managed, and optimized computing resources to transform the data center into a more flexible and efficient business application platform. After a dedicated server is dynamically hosted, the application can be run on demand in a virtual server environment.

While virtualization is reshaping the operations of data centers, enterprises can deploy rack servers to assemble and distribute applications, but this shift is not complete. Data center networks and storage assets remain isolated and statically configured, and few facilities can automate the overall management of hybrid networks and storage hardware.

The software-defined data center (SDDC) claims to change the situation. VMware describes it as: "A unified data center platform that delivers unprecedented automation, flexibility, and efficiency, and transforms the way it delivers." Assemble and summarize availability services such as compute, storage, networking, security, and deliver software that is managed through intelligent, policy-driven software. ”

Based on virtualized applications, the SDDC is capable of virtual networking and storage resources, enabling an abstract data center infrastructure to be accessed through applications and software. The goal of SDDC is to benefit many aspects of data center operations: more efficient use of resources, easier configuration and reconfiguration, and faster deployment of new applications. Wait a minute.

Eventually, the SDDC will no longer need it technicians to manipulate the orphaned servers, and the network and storage hardware will respond to supply requests. Instead, the configuration automatically defines the rules and frameworks, policy and service level agreements (SLAs) that are invoked through the application Programming Interface (API) and the business process engine, and configures the appropriate resources from within a centralized environment.

The impact of SDDC on data center infrastructure

As the dynamic allocation of resources increases, the power and cooling infrastructure needs to be upgraded to support the scalability requirements of the data center. and the increased power and cooling capabilities can make the SDDC vision truly important. It resources have been virtualized into an abstraction layer, and the data center itself rarely has such an abstraction layer. Even in a building management system (BMS) facility or data center infrastructure Management (DCIM) system, power and cooling facilities often fail to meet the requirements of SDDC.

For data centers, facility equipment plays a critical role in ensuring that data center level agreements (SLAs) are met. As a result,Big Data visualizationoperators are able to meet planning and configuration infrastructure capabilities. Integrated, adaptable power and cooling solutions must be developed. Theoretically, many virtual machines can be deployed in an abstract virtual layer, but the supply of power and cooling in any data center is limited. As a result, data centers must optimize power usage, and operators must redefine key touchpoints for data center consolidation and build management systems such as infrastructure management and monitoring systems.

To achieve the future commitment of SDDC, software-defined power needs to be added. If the industry has a common standard Reference Architecture for software-defined power, and a consensus is reached, it will help to provide the appropriate power to the data center based on consumer demand, rather than the power and cooling facilities that are planned and configured with peak values based on previous knowledge and experience.

Today, more than half of all application outages are caused by power problems. Therefore, power and cooling facilities as software-defined elements of the application environment, must improve availability. In any data center, its physical resources are meant to be strengthened and improved.

Competition between hardware and software vendors

In recent years, data center IT systems have undergone a series of dynamic changes. There is always competition between hardware, software, and service providers on the definition system. For example,  and Ericsson are competing in the telecom Industry for network function Virtualization (NFV), while SDN and open mobility are used to challenge Cisco Enterprise Network advantages. Similarly, SDS is a proprietary storage array for EMC and other large enterprises. Cloud service providers compete with data center subcontractors and play the same role in building systems.

It is worth noting that "standard" does not mean "open".Big Data analyticssoftware can run on some kind of hardware. For example, VMware and Microsoft virtualization software is proprietary, because IBMSVC and Netappontap storage can also open stacks, open flow and other open source projects still work in progress. All applications should run in the virtual machine, which is a false assumption. The control platform and data platform are best to be separated. Or, everyone wants to have a system designed to do anything elastically at any time. In most data centers, it's not easy to take a full transformation strategy. For example, when a company uses Cisco's application-centric infrastructure (ACI), the company has to buy a large number of Nexus switches to implement SDN because the company's business can only run on that system. There are winners and losers in the market.

If the "software-defined" approach is seen as part of the struggle between hardware and software vendors, it can be said that VMware has won x86 server virtualization in storage and networking, and Amazon Web Services has won the IaaS. Most data centers are characterized by the fact that they have a large amount of software for management tools and infrastructure, rather than a complex new structure. For example, in the dock and container industry involved in the movement and distance business, the need to virtualize all the systems of the x86 machine, as well as IBM's Watson and Little-endian Linux servers, HP machines and so on, the industry also needs the application interface (API) Define and develop the method of the catalog definition.

SDDC and the Cloud

The cloud can be viewed as a web marketing term for an application, or as an internal or external customer sourcing demand infrastructure service through the Internet. In contrast, a software-defined data center is a mechanism through which cloud services can provide the most efficient service.

The long-term goal of SDDC is to transform it into a service that can be delivered to end users/consumers. Today, this vision is best achieved through cloud computing models such as IAAS and platform-as-a-service (PaaS). With SDDC technology, you can improve your IT model's ability to achieve this long-term vision, just like cloud computing.

The SDDC goes beyond the traditional abstraction layer on core hardware assets and creates a simple toolkit that includes cloud computing. The SDDC can cause servers and other hardware to shut down or run at low power levels, which can have a beneficial effect on device power consumption. Some experts believe that using SDDC can be a safer way to choose a cloud. SDDC provides businesses with their own private cloud, giving them more control over the hosting of data.

SDDC can dynamically isolate and become a resource pool of complex hardware that conforms to industry standards through software rules and restrictions. It brings together key features of cloud computing infrastructure:

Standardize: Standardize the efficiency of hardware creation of resource pools. Create a standardized-based hardware environment that eliminates unnecessary complexity in the dynamic range of the data center.

Holistic: The entire data center is designed with cloud infrastructure to support all workloads in an optimized way.

Adaptability: The cloud infrastructure must be dynamic, with the ability to adapt to changing resource loads. This adaptability is automated and implements a definition-based configuration based on the operational requirements of the application.

Automation: Automation is the quality mark of the cloud infrastructure. When using software-defined data center space, the framework must have built-in intelligence, eliminate complexity, and create elastic calculations without the direct guidance of the staff.

Elasticity: SDDC must be able to compensate for hardware and software failures with its automation and adaptability. The network should automatically respond to problems that may arise and ensure the highest levels of availability.

Data Center architecture in transition

Server virtualization greatly improves the operational capabilities of the data center, significantly improves performance, improves efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and consolidates it and computing resource pools. Many organizations are looking for virtualization to scale to network and storage resources.

By adopting an abstraction layer, the entire data center infrastructure is intelligently and centrally managed, enabling organizations to effectively organize resource design software, define hardware components, and automate the transformation of their data centers. To take full advantage of these capabilities, enterprises must adopt strategies designed to build a software-defined data center (SDDC)

The benefits of implementing SDDC are many. Server pooling, reducing storage and networking hardware and specialized components. Existing hardware is easier to maintain. Most importantly, SDDC can automate and strategically implement data center resource configuration and management.

program interfaces make it possible to apply resource requirements based on explicit rules and policy resources. This allows for a more agile, flexible, secure, and high-performance data center that leverages the underlying hardware.

It should be noted that a simple virtualized data center is not a software-defined datacenter. One of the main goals of the SDDC is to support software-defined cloud computing data centers. Examples of cloud-based infrastructure for vendors such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Dynamically allocate and deliver resources through automation and business processes. The SDDC is designed to allow enterprises to inherit the business process capabilities of the above public cloud vendors without having to have a dedicated hardware platform.

The SDDC can provide the capabilities needed for enterprise cloud computing, which may be truly revolutionary and secure. In countless business applications, the SDDC is fully free to deploy, manage, and store physical infrastructure, through cloud computing and networking, to the extent permitted. With the continuous development of data center technology, the relationship between hardware and software will become more and more closely interdependent.

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What is the real software-defined data center?