SDDC and Automation in Cloud

SDDC technology providers are offering allocation of software defined services as automated process within the shortest time on Cloud. In our previously published article, we talked about Automation in the cloud, which; like everything else related to the world of technology, is constantly changing and evolving because with the passage of time, a growing number of users and workloads have forced the data center to equip themselves of the appropriate tools to better manage the needs of the customers.

Also, we talked about Intel has expanded their Monitoring Software for OpenStack Cloud Software. The server virtualization in the data center has enabled the service providers better utilization of resources, more flexibility. With software-defined Data Center (SDDC), this approach is further contemplated and expanded to include storage and network virtualization. Providers can deploy in this way individual cloud services within the shortest possible.

SDDC and Automation in Cloud : Think Ahead of Virtualization

Data center, even few years ago was a collection of hardware and software components that can be configured for the specific requirements of a client, were cross-linked and deployed. With more and more applications and complex IT structures continued to grow, this approach becoming too inflexible. The respective set-up and installation costs were very high without automation and centralized control. Especially the growing needs of businesses of flexible growth and scaling was not to cover in this way; it was time consuming and expensive to incorporate additional components. This concept could no longer meet after the “Capacity on Demand” on Cloud Platform to the users.

For the providers of data center services, server virtualization was interesting for the same reasons : Conventional and hardware-heavy approaches could be more flexible in virtual solution models. The goal of server virtualization is how to best utilize the available computing resources. The different workloads of several data center infrastructures, for example, by moving logical server are distributed so that all the components are optimally utilized. The management of virtualized environments allows, fault tolerance , performance, security and stability at significantly lower total cost of ownership.

SDDC and Automation in Cloud : Definition and Concepts

Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) engage the idea of server virtualization. Virtualization so far was been limited to server virtualization, all the components of a data center are now placed under this concept. So, it can be thought like a Server Virtualization controlled virtualized shared storage and network systems. So it requires a holistic view of the required Compute/RAM, storage and network resources for the individual cloud services to define and operate in a consistent fashion.

With the SDDC approach, service providers have opened up new business opportunities in cloud computing. Providers such as Rackspace, Amazon, Google and Microsoft started to focus their resources on the basis of virtualization technologies to provide users a fee available, just few years ago. These providers can book quickly and easily the needed extra compute capacity or space.

Classic (public) cloud computing was basically always been a SDDC – It can be fitted with different equipment or with a defined software configuration including the network connection on the platform virtual machines. Users can book in the self-service process at relatively low cost, while the whole thing, works quickly and automatically.

Flexible concept is only in a narrow corridor. Moreover, the constellation is predominantly static: the user can, for example, select the number of servers, select the required storage space and the software environment; can adapt to their individual service environment they need.

Who within these cloud services is given access to the stored data, in many cases is not transparent to the user. The spyware activities by Governmental agencies in last year has made the fundamental limitations of this approach – clearly once again as an user of the service you can not specify where the data may reside or which law regulates the third party access to the data stored here.

Another important point is the Service Level Agreements (SLA) that govern the quality and availability of cloud services. Some SLAs require that systems and data to be geographically separated, they are kept in so-called redundant availability zones.

The users are thus in a dilemma: you can quickly and easily select a range whose standards meets the minimum or they can choose a customized solution of a service provider, which, as any ready made to measure, not only has advantage on price, departmental store versus Tailor’s shop.

SDDC and Automation in Cloud

With the SDDC concept, service providers now can design their offerings to meet the both sides. Since a SDDC is no longer a static infrastructure, a software layer can be created, which converts the individual requirements step by step in a technical configuration. All servers – storage and network resources are configured at this level by a corresponding automated management so that at the end a personal service is provided; the provider of this engine is, for example, Electronic Workflow System (EMS). Additional tools are able to obtain information about the required parameters itself from a system database.