Software makes data center flexibility – Computer Week

Data Center are no longer old-style data centers that provide users after weeks or even months of waiting, IT services available. Cloud Computing and the digitization of business models require an agile IT infrastructure that can adapt quickly and with little effort to meet new requirements.

But such IT and data center infrastructure is not to be found in most companies , A study by the market research firm IDC, for example, 24 percent of data center professionals complain that changes to the network infrastructure require too much time and too high a cost. Respectively 16 percent of respondents complain about the lack of performance and scalability. And for 22 per cent is not acceptable that changes to the infrastructure mean that IT services are not temporarily available.

A study conducted by IDC wish for many IT professionals greater flexibility of data center infrastructure. This can be achieve by using software-based approaches
. Photo: IDC

More flexibility is software

One solution is a software-based IT infrastructure (Software-Defined Infrastructure, SDI). Intel tried this concept is currently having success in its own data centers. Frequently an SDI with software-defined networking (SDN) is equated. That is not right. Because SDN is only one of several components of a Software-Defined Infrastructure. This consists of

Software Defined Computing (SDC) : These are physical and virtual servers for different workloads (application areas) are provided. Intel has defined, for example, four server segments of “Basic” systems with a single processor to “Massive memory” servers with four processor sockets and up to 16 terabytes of RAM. The basis CPUs of series Xeon E3 and E5

Software-Defined Storage (SDS) :. SDS cuts demand different storage types (File, Block, Object) and different animal (Cold, Warm, Hot) per common software interface to. As with Storage-Defined Computing with SDS can even use standard hardware to be used based on x86 processors for storing data

software-defined networking (SDN) .: In SDN control plane (Control Plane) is disconnected the network systems (switches, routers) of the Data Plane (data transport plane). External Controller to take control of the network components and make it possible to provide via software applications, and IT services required network resources are available. As with SDS no special switches are also at SDN with proprietary operating systems longer necessary. Their role can also standard hardware to take on x86-based.

Benefits of Software-Defined Infrastructure

According to experience from Intel in its 60 data centers, a software-defined acts Infrastructure on multilevel positive. This applies both to the cost. Thus, in one example, SDI open standards and protocols like OpenFlow to be used. This reduces the dependence on costly vendor-specific hardware and software. Another advantage is that with it the dependence of products of individual producers decreases, keyword vendor lock-in. In addition, a data center requires fewer specialists, the special training are required to complete by the manufacturer of individual systems.

Key elements of a Software-Defined Infrastructure datacenter are virtualized servers (left) and networks (right).
Photo: Intel

Positive on the cost also has an effect that the utilization of infrastructure increases by a resource pooling and consolidation related. As a result capacity utilization of infrastructure of more than 80 percent is possible. For server systems even values ​​of about 85 per cent are at a high virtualization degree feasible.

resources are automatically provided

A weakness of conventional IT infrastructures is that resources and services “by hand be “assigned. Although the situation has improved through the use of management tools, many experts are busy in a standard data center still to monitor and manage IT services and their associated systems. A software-based infrastructure allows the users on the other hand, as a department, independently requesting IT resources – such as the transition in cloud services and there is. This self-service model relieves the IT department and reduces the complexity associated with deploying IT services. The IT professionals thus gain time to focus on more strategic tasks.

How to migrate to a SDI runs in practice, demonstrated by the example of Intel. The company has its data centers in 2015 largely converted to a software-based infrastructure
Photo:. Intel

Greater flexibility and agility

one of the major advantages of a SDI, that the IT department can provide the specialist departments as needed data center services are available. Requires example the research and development department for complex simulations more computing and storage capacity, is this done in a few hours. For comparison: Even a high-tech companies such as Intel needed before the introduction of SDI and an SDN infrastructure up to 13 days to implement new network services

A software-based infrastructure thus allows the IT infrastructure. the requirements of applications and business processes to adapt – without long waits and at lower cost than before. This in turn increases the responsiveness of businesses and gives them the ability to respond quickly to market trends and customer requirements.

Positive experiences from Intel

In implementing its strategy towards software-based data centers Intel has already gained positive experiences. So the cost per network port could through the use of standard hardware instead of proprietary networking systems can be reduced by up to 50 percent.

A saving in cost to also 50 percent registered the high-tech companies in the area Storage. In this case, Intel replaced proprietary storage systems through a shared file storage components based on standard hardware and appropriate software. Losses in relation to the performance were not recorded. Similar results appeared in the field of software-defined Compute (SDC). There Intel could through the segmentation of the server landscape in four performance classes reduce software license costs and energy consumption.

An advantage of software-based infrastructures is that departments own applications, server capacity and resources such as networks can (see picture) Request and set
Photo:. Intel

Conclusion: The software-based data center is worth

In the data center of the future software will play an important role, in conjunction with hardware, which preferably utilizes the computing power of current x86 processors from vendors such as Intel.

But there are not only large IT companies like Intel, Google, Facebook or Microsoft, which benefit from a Software-Defined Infrastructure. The same is true for medium-sized companies. It is precisely they have to rely on to act faster and more flexibly on the market if they want to compete against the “big ones”. Data centers with a Software-Defined Infrastructure open up this possibility.