In a simple word, Data Center where we don’t have physical intervention. All components of an infrastructure are virtualized, and the management of the data center is entirely automated by software. Here in this topic we are referring that software as vSphere. VMware vSphere provides virtualization at each layer including Compute, Storage, and Network layer. Let’s get insight the benefit of SDDC and what all you will get from it.
In a software-defined data center, policy-driven automation enables provisioning and ongoing management of logical compute, storage and network services. The result is unprecedented IT agility and efficiency, with flexibility to support today and tomorrow's hardware and applications.
The Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC), a proven architectural approach based on virtualization and automation, drives many of today’s leading data centers. The VMware approach enables companies to adopt SDDC technologies at their own pace, without having to rip and replace the existing infrastructure.
In a software-defined data center, all infrastructure is virtualized, and the control of the data center is entirely automated by software.
SDDC Technology Product Name
Compute Virtualization VMware vSphere
Storage Virtualization VMware vSphere, VMware vSAN
Network Virtualization VMware NSX
Cloud Management Platform VMware vRealize
Integrated System VMware EVO
Hosted Public Cloud VMware vCloud Air
• vSphere and vSphere with Operations Management - As the foundation for VMware’s complete Software-Defined Data Center platform, vSphere is the starting point for building your Software-Defined Data Center. With vSphere in place, you can seamlessly extend virtualization to storage and network services and add automated, policy-based provisioning and management.
• vCloud Suite - Brings together VMware’s industry-leading vSphere hypervisor and VMware vRealize Suite in a single package. VMware’s new portable licensing units allows vRealize Suite capabilities to easily be leveraged to manage, vSphere, non-vSphere and Public Cloud workloads.
• NSX - VMware’s network virtualization platform, NSX, deploys on top of existing physical network hardware and supports the newest fabrics and geometries from all vendors. Existing applications and monitoring tools work smoothly with NSX without any modifications.
• vRealize Suite - An enterprise-ready, cloud management platform the delivers the industry’s most complete solution for managing a heterogeneous, hybrid cloud. Delivered in Standard, Advanced and Enterprise editions, vRealize Suite is designed to meet the specific needs of enterprises addressing Intelligent Operations, Automated IT to IaaS and DevOps-Ready IT use cases.
• vCloud Air - VMware vCloud Air is a secure, dedicated hybrid cloud platform built on VMware vSphere. An agile IaaS platform, it supports existing workloads and third-party applications, as well as new application development.
• vSAN - Create radically simple shared storage for virtual machines from server-based storage, enabling a resilient, high-performance scale-out architecture that reduces TCO by as much as 50 percent.
• Dramatically higher efficiency and lower costs - Virtualized IT services and automated operations management drive new levels of resource utilization and staff productivity.
• Application provisioning in minutes - Policy-based configuration lets you deliver workloads in minutes, with resource levels automatically adjusted to meet continually changing business demands.
• The right availability and security for every application - Automated business continuity and virtualization-aware security combine to provide exceptional uptime and unmatched control over resource access and placement.
• Any workload delivered anywhere - Run both new and existing applications across multiple platforms and clouds, with instant delivery to any user on any desktop or mobile device.
• Fully Virtualized Infrastructure - The software-defined approach extends industry-leading vSphere virtualization beyond compute to network and storage, making data center services as easy and inexpensive to configure and manage as virtual machines. Dell EMC VxRail, a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance powered by VMware vSAN, offers multiple configuration options to cover a wide range of applications and workloads. Dell EMC VxRack SDDC, a turnkey hyper-converged solution powered by VMware Cloud Foundation, is a fully integrated hardware and software rack-scale engineered system. Both seamlessly integrate with existing VMware eco-system management solutions for streamlined deployment and management in VMware environments.
• Governed by a Comprehensive Cloud Management Platform - Unified, policy-driven technology automates and manages IT services across heterogeneous clouds. Unlike legacy solutions, the platform is purpose-built to orchestrate the changing dynamics of software-defined workloads.
• Delivered on a Flexible Mix of Private and Hybrid Clouds - Applications and services can be provisioned and run on both on-premises private clouds and secure infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platforms, with seamless workload mobility across the hybrid environment. You can utilize virtually any hardware, minimizing the need for specialized infrastructure.
• Customer-Ready Software-Defined Data Center Solutions - Go to the VMware {code} to learn about the newly announced Federation Software-Defined Data Center – a joint solution with best-of-breed technologies from Dell EMC, Pivotal with RSA and VMware. Designed to meet the needs of mission critical enterprise applications, this fully integrated, engineered, tested and validated solution will help you accelerate your transition to a Software-Defined Enterprise.
• SDDC reduce the need of physical devices and creates centralized datacenter which can be accessible and manage in easier way then a Physical Datacenter.
• SDDC increases efficiency and lower the IT Operational Cost.
• SDDC architecture makes the hybrid cloud possible by defining a platform common to both private and public clouds.
• SDDC management is automated through a cloud management platform, which controls both on-premises and off-premises resources. It brings automation, operations, governance insight to IT.
• SDDC meets all four requirements: -
o Run traditional applications in addition to cloud-native applications without rearchitecting them.
o Enable IT organizations to build on their existing skills in running virtualized IT environment.
o Enables both on-premises data center and cloud-based services with unified management.
o Securely protect the infrastructure while providing elastic scaling or bursting of services.
• Enterprises can adopt to run any application on top of any x86, storage, and IP network hardware.
There are three major components of Data Center which get virtualized using SDDC.
1. Compute Virtualization
2. Network Virtualization
3. Storage Virtualization
• In a datacenter, an infrastructure is combination of mainly these three components. SDDC provides the platform to build these all components under virtual roof to enhance the efficiency and reduce the cost of IT Infrastructure.
• By using virtualization it meets the need of AMPRS(Availability, Manageability, Performance, Recoverability, Security) in more better way.
Overall, there are three approaches to building an SDDC, each with its own benefits and rationale.
Build Your Own
• Select and procure software and hardware components separately
• Integrate on your own
Converged Infrastructure
• Traditional data center components (e.g., shared storage hardware, servers, switches) integrated and sold in a single chassis
• Prescriptive software stack preinstalled
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
• Integration of hardware (compute, storage, networking) with software
• Provides a single point of entry for SDDC life cycle management
• Easy scale-out by adding more units
Build Your Own - The first approach is “Build Your Own”: You need to buy hardware which will be used as hypervisor and also required SDDC Software I;e VMware vSphere Suite. Install hardware in your datacenter and use SDDC software to virtualize the environment. “Build Your Own” offers two key benefits: First, it enables enterprises to transform over time in deploying network virtualization, software-defined storage, and a cloud management platform. Second, because an SDDC is hardware agnostic, this approach also provides an extremely wide range of hardware options to choose from, so enterprises can choose hardware configurations they believe are optimized for certain workload types.
Converged Infrastructure - The second approach is to leverage Converged Infrastructure, a model through which traditional data center components such as shared storage arrays, servers, and switches are integrated and sold in a single chassis. I;e VCE vBlock which includes all SDDC Component and readily available to deploy in your datacenter. This approach simplifies the hardware engineering and integration process and enables customers to adopt virtualization platform in easy way.
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure - The third and most recent approach is to leverage Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI). HCI aims to do three things: First, it preinstalls and integrates all SDDC components—server, storage, and network virtualization, as well as cloud management—so the customer immediately gets the full benefits of an SDDC. Second, it essentially implements a reference architecture developed by VMware with its hardware partners, which reduces complexity for IT. Third, it automates the ongoing life cycle management of the infrastructure, whether it is updating an SDDC software component—a vSphere upgrade, for example—or updating firmware from hardware vendors. Security patches are also automated in the same manner.
• Virtualization economics across your data center – Software-defined data center technology helps attain new levels of infrastructure utilization and staff productivity, substantially reducing both capital expenditures and operating costs.
• Applications at business speed – Enabling deployment of applications in minutes or even seconds with policy-driven provisioning that dynamically matches resources to continually changing workloads and business demands.
• Business-aware IT control – Driving right availability, security and compliance for every application via automated business continuity, policy-based governance and virtualization-aware security and compliance.
• Your data center on your terms – The software-defined data center can be leveraged as a private, hybrid or public cloud—in each case, infrastructure is fully abstracted from applications so they can run on multiple hardware stacks, hypervisors and clouds.
• Provides a business-focused approach - Shifting from a technology or devices approach to one that supports how people work both within the data center and throughout the organization is one of the main benefits to the SDDC. The SDDC automates the delivery of your IT resources through a unified process – so your data center operates the way you want, not the way component or siloed technologies demand.
• Simplifies data center management - Simpler is better. Rather than using multiple tools to manage the variety of technologies in today’s data center – from servers to switches to storage devices – the SDDC provides a single platform for monitoring, updating and scaling server, storage and networking resources.
• Increases the speed of service delivery - The use of automation and software-defined mapping of server, storage and networking resources provides for greater agility, control, efficiency and reliability when deploying enterprise technology services.
• Extends benefits of automation and orchestration - With a properly-configured SDDC, you are poised to extend the benefits of automation and orchestration into any IT services delivery workflow. This means that previously complex IT services can be deployed in a standard, repeatable fashion.
