Published on the 01/10/2015 | Written by Newsdesk
The software-defined data centre (SDDC) is crucial to the long-term evolution of an agile digital business says Gartner – the future is not now…
“Infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders need to understand the business case, best use cases and risks of an SDDC,” said Dave Russell, Gartner VP and distinguished analyst.
An SDDC has all infrastructure virtualised and delivered “as-a-service.” This enables increased levels of automation and flexibility, permitting increased adoption of cloud services and enabling modern IT approaches such as DevOps.
While talking up the future, Gartner said that most organisations today are not ready to begin adoption and should proceed with caution. “Due to current immaturity, the SDDC is most appropriate for visionary organisations with advanced expertise in I&O engineering and architecture,” said Russell.
By 2020, however, Gartner anticipates the programmatic capabilities of an SDDC will be considered a requirement for 75 percent of Global 2000 enterprises that seek to implement a DevOps approach and a hybrid cloud model.
DevOps is a collaborative software development method which emphasises the roles of software developers together with other IT professionals.
“I&O leaders can’t just buy a ready-made SDDC from a vendor,” said Russell. “First, they need to understand why they need it for the business. Second, they need to deploy, orchestrate and integrate numerous parts, probably from different vendors.”
Moreover, aside from considerable deployment work, new skills and a cultural shift in the IT organisation are needed to ensure this approach delivers results for the business.
Gartner said the top risks of an SDDC project failure are an absence of appropriate skills and (perhaps as always) getting the timing right. “Build the right skills by enabling top infrastructure architects to experiment with public cloud infrastructure in small projects, as well giving them the opportunity to get out and learn what their peers in other organisations and visionaries in this field are doing,” said Russell.
And the right time to move to an SDDC may be years away for most organisations – but for many it will come sooner than their preparations allow for. “The first step is understanding the core concepts of the SDDC,” said Russell. “Then, I&O leaders should examine the available solutions starting with one component, process or software-defined domain that can benefit. The final stage is to plan a roadmap to full deployment if and when SDDC solutions are appropriate.”
Moreover, the technology for the SDDC is still nascent. Gartner said even the more established software-defined areas like networking and storage ‘are still gelling’ and experiencing early stage adoption levels. Implementing in phases is recommended, once it’s been established that the solutions in the market deliver enough functionality, interoperability and production-proven deployment history to be viable. “Storage can be a compelling starting point as the capabilities often stack up favourably against traditional solutions,” said Russell.
Vendors are likely still up to their old tricks, too, as Russell cautioned against lock-in. Open-source standards or a cloud management platform may help IT organisations to reduce vendor lock-in, but it cannot be eliminated altogether. There are also no universal standards in place for infrastructure APIs, so adopting and coding to a particular API results in a degree of lock-in. It’s vital to understand the trade-offs at work and the costs of migration or exit when choosing vendors and technologies.
“Recognise that adopting an SDDC means trading a hardware lock-in for a software lock-in,” said Russell. “Choose the most appropriate kind of lock-in consciously and with all the facts at hand.”
