The Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) seemed to be such a theoretical concept when the buzz around it started. When did it start, and were we ever convinced it was coming? When Salesforce and Google started making application available in a SaaS model? When Amazon started deploying massive capacity, and charging based on actual usage? When Microsoft put its Office suite on the web? Oracle Databases on the web? No, no, no, and no. On each occasion, we refused to completely buy in. However, SDDC is here, and is here to stay. In that case, what has changed?
There are many catalysts involved with this transformation.
- Critical Mass on Virtualization achieved, with over 50% of processing on Virtual Machines
- Advances in Cloud Orchestration and deployment tools, approaching maturity
- Increased virtualization of desktops, and the move to mobile platforms and apps
- Simplified monitoring and automation to better support deployment and lifecycle support
- Race amongst networking vendors to promote Network Virtualization and Software Defined Networking
SDDC is already a reality with large organizations and providers adopting it. There is an ecosystem of providers promoting their choice of Cloud technologies – vCloud, OpenStack, AWS, to name a few. So what is next?
We can expect to see continuing buildouts of computing capacity supporting the major vendor ecosystems – VMware, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc. In addition, a few large corporates, and large ISVs, such as Oracle and SAP will also participate. We can expect to see increased interoperability between tools offered by various vendors. For example, use a service for compute, another for database, and a third for Business Intelligence, all seamlessly working together. Or yet another for mobile apps, or Data Analytics, and so on. We could bid upon compute blocks on eBay, or browse the online catalog for sale listings.
At the end of the day, it is all about seamless computing, and SDDC enables the individual, the entrepreneur, the SMB owner to leverage the same technologies, at the same price points as large organizations. It is the increased democratization of computing, and it is good for business.
Happy Computing!!