What Is a Software-Defined Data Center? Sddcs Explained

Are you looking to improve your IT agility? Is scaling up your physical data center too slow and cumbersome?

A software defined data center (SDDC) might be what your company needs to accelerate your IT service delivery. SDDCs resemble traditional data centers, with some notable differences, particularly through their use of virtualization, abstraction, resource pooling, and automation.

In this article, we’ll cover these topics to help you determine whether you’re ready to transition to an SDDC:

• SDDCs
• Key components
• Benefits of SDDCs
• SDDC vendors
• How to switch to an SDDC
• Additional resources

(This article is part of our Data Center Operations Guide. Use the right-hand menu to navigate.)

What is an SDDC?

A traditional data center is a facility where organizational data, applications, networks, and infrastructure are centrally housed and accessed. It is the hub for IT operations and physical infrastructure equipment, including servers, storage devices, network equipment, and security devices. Traditional data centers can be hosted:

• On-premise
• With a managed service provider (MSP)
• In the cloud

In contrast, a software-defined data center is an IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) platform that services an organization’s software, infrastructure, or platform needs. An SDDC can be housed on-premise, at an MSP, and in private, public, or hosted clouds. (For our purposes, we will discuss the benefits of hosting an SDDC in the cloud.) Like traditional data centers, SDDCs also host servers, storage devices, network equipment, and security devices.

Here’s where the differences come in.

Unlike traditional data centers, an SDDC uses a virtualized environment to deliver a programmatic approach to the functions of a traditional data center. Like server virtualization concepts used for years, SDDCs abstract, pool, and virtualize all data center services and resources in order to:

• Reduce costs
• Increase scalability
• Improve business agility

(Learn more about IT virtualization.)

You can manage SDDCs from any location, using remote APIs and Web browser interfaces. SDDCs also make extensive use of automation capabilities to:

• Reduce IT resource usage
• Provide automated deployment and management for many core functions

Key components of SDDCs

With the advent of hyperconverged infrastructure—where all IT infrastructure elements are software-defined and deployed—network technology has the power to support cloud SDDC and ITaaS initiatives.

SDDC host servers reside in the cloud, where you can create and configure your data centers to your needs, without having to physically configure or host network equipment. SDDCs rely heavily on virtualization technologies to abstract, pool, manage, and deploy data center functions.

Key SDDC architectural components include:

• Compute virtualization, where virtual machines (VMs)—including their operating systems, CPUs, memory, and software—reside on cloud servers. Compute virtualization allows users to create software implementations of computers that can be spun up or spun down as needed, decreasing provisioning time.
• Network virtualization, where the network infrastructure servicing your VMs can be provisioned without worrying about the underlying hardware. Network infrastructure needs—telecommunications, firewalls, subnets, routing, administration, DNS, etc.—are configured inside your cloud SDDC on the vendor’s abstracted hardware. No network hardware assembly is required.
• Storage virtualization, where disk storage is provisioned from the SDDC vendor’s storage pool. You get to choose your storage types, based on your needs and costs. You can quickly add storage to a VM when needed.
• Management and automation software. SDDCs use management and automation software to keep business critical functions working around the clock, reducing the need for IT manpower. Remote management and automation is delivered via a software platform accessible from any suitable location, via APIs or Web browser access.

You can also connect additional critical software to connect with and customize your SDDC platform. But, for companies just moving to an SDDC, your first goal is to get your basic operations software infrastructure ready for the transition. Customizing can come later.