Data centers have been challenged for a long time to provide customers with more computing and storage services within the limited physical boundaries of their facilities. Although data centers range from micro facilities and multi-functional edge data centers to large hyper-scale facilities, it’s truly the servers on the data floor that make everything possible.

Over many years, these facilities have faced severe limitations as they had to constantly add servers and other data center components to meet the growing demand. This in turn placed additional requirements on power and cooling capacity. However, many long-accepted data center practices are being rethought due to server virtualization.

Overview of Software Defined Data Centers (SDDCs)

Datacenter virtualization technology enables facilities to recreate the computing and storage functions of IT hardware in the form of software. Rather than providing dedicated physical servers to customers, facilities can use server virtualization to leverage the power of this hardware and effectively increase the number of services they provide. Segmentation technology allows multiple clients to use the same server while distributing the workload to multiple servers. Datacenter network virtualization essentially turns the facility into one giant server leveraging your entire infrastructure to provide a wide range of services.

Data centers that use this approach are called software-defined data centers (SDDCs) because they provide computing and storage services chiefly through software-driven tools rather than traditional hardware. Traditionally, customers could purchase many different servers, which would form the basis of their service requirements. If they need to increase performance, storage, or power, they must purchase additional server space. However, the SDDC service model is more like the cloud computing model. The facility implements resource virtualization through the use of high-density deployment, and customers can easily purchase the resources they need without worrying about how many servers are required to support their business.

Part 2 will discuss Data Center Virtualization Benefits and Server Virtualization Benefits.

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