Is Software Defined Data Centre Real?

Jul 27,2021 by Manoj Yadav

Software Defined Data Centre technology is yet to be developed to a fully developed autonomous data environment. In fact, it hasn’t still come out of the drawing board.

SDDC has become a buzzword for the data centre experts since 2015. In 2016 the trend has got the required momentum. You can Google it and you’ll find loads of articles bragging about it. But fact of the matter is that it is still in the process of development and still not out of the drawing board. No matter what the fact is, you will find loads of articles and blogs having titles with “Software Defined Data Centre”.

Formal Definition

There has been no formal definition of Software Defined Data Centre or SDDC. In fact, that’s the main reason why different people refer to it as per their own wishes. Technology industry has seen many disillusionments as well as hypes surrounding this concept. That’s why, taking a good look at the concept has become very important. It is essential to determine what’s real currently and what’s imaginary.

When it comes to SDDC at this point in time, it is definitely a real thing. The last existing link between physical infrastructure and virtual architecture has been severed with NFV (network functions virtualisation) and SDN (software defined networking). In fact, all the pieces are there for completely getting started with end-to-end data environment hosting completely in software.

What’s the progress in this front?

Research report of 451 Research, a well known market research firm, shows that 2/3rd of the total number of organisations are all ready to increase their expenditure on SDDC infrastructure from 2016 itself. However, the rest say that the SDI products are not mature yet for adoption. In fact, the later part also shows lack of expertise in the field for non-adoption of software defined infrastructure. Shortage of expertise staff on SDDC is another reason for many to site non-adoption of the software driven infrastructure technology.

What does it say?

This shows the fact that Software Defined Data Centre is not a myth anymore. It has now advanced from a mere concept to a fully fledged functioning platform. However, there are still some practical realities of the development process that are restricting full scale production deployment of the concept. It is also a reality that if the industry learns to function in the new environment, the total number of people with actual knowhow will still be very less.

Rushing to the Market

Enterprise vendors are taking their SDDC products and rushing to meet the ever expanding market demand. In fact, two big names that have come together in this initiative are VMware and IBM. They have forged a partnership for supporting IBM Cloud’s Virtual SAN, NSX, and vSphere platforms. They know the fact that the day is not far from today that the commercial deployments will emerge. Experts say they have made this partnership move by acknowledging the fact that there has been and will have a tremendous growth in scalable and virtualised resources in the coming days. To get ready for the start of commercial deployments the two behemoths are preparing themselves by having their own SDDC solution.

What’s in the Offing?

Experts say that there is a great possibility of increase in demand for scalable cloud resources and the main wave of demand will surge from start-up companies. The industry specialists believe that these start-ups will move all their data operation to cloud. If it happens indeed then this is going to be a tremendous advantageous point for the providers. And the list of these providers range from Amazon, Google, Oracle, and Microsoft.

What’s the Advantage?

The benefits are manifold. The major advantageous point of Software Defined Data Center is not only the promise of virtualisation but also the provisioning of entire computer architecture. With the advent of SDDC, businesses can use a simple user interface for provisioning, migrating across clouds, scaling up and down, integrating with other environments, and other environments.

IT tech personnel have generally patched networks, provisioned new storage, and carried out load balancing manually. However, with the advent of SDDC, the entire process will be virtualised entirely.

What’s actually happening?

The fundamental architecture is needed to be built first so that they can be purchased and deployed by the companies. Once the fundamental architecture is built, the multi-layer virtual stack needs to be constructed then after. In the end, two steps are needed to be done in implementation of SDDC and they are end-to-end orchestration, followed by automation layer. These last two steps are the main stumbling blocks.

Is it still a Pleasant Dream?

As on now it seems to be a pleasant dream. Software Defined Data Centre will provide enterprises with an over-arching data environment that are intelligent as well as autonomous. SDDC will deliver optimal service with a few clicks. With big data and (IoT) Internet of Things making it big in the industry, the day is of SDDC is not far away. However, as of now, it is still in the drawing boards and is in the process of being transformed into real architecture.

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