Cloud Computing: The Software Defined Data Center Emerges (Slowly)
February 3, 2014
Grazed from Datamation. Author: Editorial Staff.
Due to the increasing importance of virtualization and cloud computing in the enterprise, the Software Defined Data Center, or Virtual Data Center, is gaining momentum. Once applications are separated from underlying hardware, it makes sense to push the concept further. And once application assets reside in a nebulous cloud that may be difficult for IT to gain visibility into, let alone maintain and manage, ideas like Software Defined Data Centers (SDDC) start to make a quite a bit of sense. To date, the only Software-Defined market with any real traction is for Software Defined Networking products. A 2012 study by IDC predicted that SDN spending would reach $360 million in 2013, expanding to $3.7 billion by 2016.
Analyst forecasts aren’t the only way to measure the potential of SDN, though. In 2012, VMware acquired SDN startup Nicira for $1.26 billion. Brocade, Cisco, and Juniper followed suit by acquiring Vyatta, Cariden, and Contrail, respectively. Moreover, VCs are pouring serious money into this sector, heavily financing such startups as Affirmed Networks ($103 million raised to date), Big Switch Networks ($45 million), and Plexxi ($48 million)…
Building on SDN’s success, the SD concept has migrated to storage, security, and, now, the entire data center. From SDN to SDDCs At the most basic level, what SDN does is separate the control plane (or the built-in management logic firmware) from the data plane (which forwards network traffic to other devices) of networking devices…
Read more from the source @ http://www.datamation.com/data-center/the-software-defined-data-center-emerges-slowly-1.html
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