Pluribus expects strong development of SDDC and private cloud in 2016
Editor’s Note: With 2016 now upon us, RCR Wireless News has gathered predictions from leading industry analysts and executives on what they expect to see in the new year.
The “software-defined data center” as a phrase has been making the rounds for the past several years. In some circles it is used interchangeably with the phrase “private cloud.” Call it what you like, but it’s safe to say it can be viewed as the most advanced level of macro virtualization that can be applied at the data center level. While individual virtualization of subsystems (like compute) have become commonplace for more than a dozen years, the SDDC and private cloud aim to apply virtualization to all of the subsystems found in a data center in a coordinated fashion. Those subsystems include those in the traditional IT domain (such as compute, storage and networking) as well as those in the facilities world, which include power and cooling.
Once implemented, the SDDC can be thought of as an integrated and dynamic machine that can almost instantaneously throttle up or down depending on the needs of the business. Not well understood by most, as resources throttle up or down, the economics of the entire IT function changes as well. In contrast, IT organizations have evolved for 20 or more years cobbling together point solutions in complex arrangements to solve tactical problems. They solved real problems, but did so in an environment that rewarded individual success. The result? These years of tactical deployments and the associated change management processes transformed well-built structures into data centers that are fairly complicated, delicate and expensive to maintain. This tactical behavior affects the bottom line, as data center complexity lengthens the time it takes to deliver new IT services, which in turn affects the ability to support new business initiatives and in many cases becomes an obstacle to realizing new revenue streams.
When public cloud providers such as Amazon.com and Google appeared on the scene, it became apparent forward-looking IT organizations wanted to mimic those public cloud providers self-service style capabilities but do so on their own economic terms. They realized this was possible by re-tooling their infrastructures with virtualized compute, storage and networking subsystems to allow fast-paced alignment with the business and the ability to deploy new applications at the touch of a button. And if they choose those virtualized technologies carefully, they could define their own highly competitive cost structures. It is this set of new virtualization technologies that forward-looking IT organizations seek to deploy today, which once accomplished will provide them all of the advantages of the public cloud providers, but at a cost structure that is much more compatible with their traditional allocation and investment strategies. They will have created a private cloud.
Keep in mind the real value of the private cloud is not at the technology level, but rests squarely with the ability to quickly align IT with the changing needs of the business. Every business has an IT function that is measured by their ability to deliver a unit of work (which they may not have thought about in such simple terms). They may in fact have several units of work, which keeps their businesses running. At the macro level, for a business to be successful, the cost for each unit of work needs to decrease over time or volume. By taking a holistic SDDC view and having all of the individual data center subsystems working together in a coordinated manner, the cost for each unit of work can be managed by allowing costly resources to be brought online quickly as needed, and then removed from production when they’re no longer required.
In 2016, all of these virtualized subsystems will allow enterprises to mimic the success of the public cloud providers, but with a economic model that they can define themselves. For example, IT organizations can remove their rigid structural boundaries and hard to maintain, often duplicated investments and deploy virtualization of all resources throughout. These pooled resources can then be allocated for individual projects as needed and subsequently returned to “inventory” when those projects are completed. Knowing that pools of virtualized resources are available allows IT business managers to focus on business rather than logistics. Building a private cloud positions these IT leaders for success, knowing their infrastructure can support any upcoming high-level initiative. Ultimately, the software-defined data center is a reality – for those enterprises that wish to adopt it today.
