Agencies set building blocks of the software-defined enterprise
Connecting state and local government leaders
As government agencies experiment with converged infrastructure, they see the outline of the future software defined data center.
Fourth in a series.
With pressure on to conserve capital and energy costs, government agencies are experimenting with converged infrastructure systems. The technology integrates a variety of storage, server and networking components to give administrators more control over their data center operations.
IT administrators and data center managers say software-defined technology is a key driver behind these new-look approaches to managing enterprise storage, compute and networking needs. In the future, they say, the data center will be defined by software.
The trend is to some extent tied to converged infrastructure, since software also gives the converged hardware device its computing and storage characteristics. But ultimately this software-driven infrastructure can exist independently of a converged hardware platform.
Software-defined storage is one example. The technology, often referred to as storage virtualization, creates a single pool of storage from multiple, physical storage devices. A software layer then provisions storage to applications that need it and provides functions such as policy management, replication and backup.
Chris Poelker, vice president of enterprise solutions at FalconStor Software Inc., a Melville, N.Y., company that focuses on data protection and migration, said Phoenix, Ariz., which has virtualized on the server side, is now also pursuing storage virtualization.
“They are now doing the storage virtualization piece so they can get to the software-defined data center,” he said.
The software-defined data center (SDDC), more vision than reality at this point, pulls together server and storage virtualization. The idea is that software can tap resources across the data center to readily provision compute and storage as needed.
Software defined networking (SDN) is another emerging element of SDDC. As with storage, SDN relies on a software layer that takes on the complexities of infrastructure management. SDN lets IT administrators program all of the devices on a network through a software controller, rather than configuring switches and other networking gear individually.
Sudhir Verma, chief technology officer at Force 3, a federal solutions provider based in Crofton, Md., said he believes SDN may be the most critical SDDC element since networking is the most complex piece of infrastructure.
Organizations would struggle to realize the SDDC’s management and provisioning benefits without a robust virtualized networking environment, he said. “If I were going in the SDDC direction today, the first thing I would look at is SDN,” he said.
In Newington, Conn., chief information officer Paul Boutot said the town’s recent investment in OmniCube converged infrastructure from SimpliVity will also help it leverage SDN at some point.
“It sets us up down the road to take advantage of some of those network features,” he said.
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