Compute Engine

Software Defined Data Center

The data center of the future: entirely software-based with excellent cost-efficiency and flexibility — highly available and customizable.

Compute Engine / IaaS

Software Defined Data Center

Cloud computing has arrived in many companies. The data center of the future will no longer be found on company premises. Instead, users will increasingly source their resources as a service from cloud computing providers. The Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) in the public cloud is a logical extension of this trend. Highly available, dynamically scalable virtual resources with needs-based delivery and use-based billing — not only cloud-computing providers, but also a growing number of system vendors, specialists, analysts and even market research institutes are convinced that the future belongs to Software Defined Data Centers.

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SDDC — abstraction of all data center components

In its study entitled “Server and Data Center Predictions,” the Forrester Research market research institute concluded that the Software Defined Data Center will soon become an increasingly important organizational concept for complex virtualized IT infrastructures. If so, cloud computing providers will provide more than just storage or servers as virtual resources. SDDC means far more, namely software-based abstraction of the entire data center. This means that all of the components in a Software Defined Data Center will be completely virtualized. Besides the servers and storage capacities, the networks — including switches and load balancers as well as firewalls and security systems — will also be modelled, made available and managed automatically using software.

Dedicated sever icon with a server rack and checkmarks

Advantages of the Software Defined Data Center

A Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) lays the foundation for a revolutionary data center design, delivering excellent flexibility and maximum cost-efficiency to users. Both horizontal and vertical scalability enable the booking, downscaling or even deactivation of instances at any time. This way, the customer has the perfect IT infrastructure available in just the right size to suit its current requirements in any given situation. A SDDC from a cloud hosting provider does not entail physical hardware on premises. Instead, it is available as a scalable service that does not require any investments in proprietary hardware or incur operating overheads.

One-click availability of SDDCs

The cloud hosting provider delivers the control elements with which the user manages its own virtual data center exclusively via software. Configuring a Software Defined Data Center does not require any laborious programming on the part of the network administrator, who instead becomes the user of an infrastructure that he or she does not have to physically operate.

IONOS developed a special Data Center Designer (DCD) for this purpose. It provides a graphical user interface that allows assembly and modification of all components within a virtual data center. What’s more, resources needed for daily operations can be booked or disabled using a modern cloud API (REST).

Although development in the area of Software Defined Data Centers is only just beginning, the advantages of a flexible and automated IT infrastructure with a high level of abstraction are already clearly visible. Scalability, fast response times, flexibility and cost-effectiveness are powerful reasons why the future belongs to Software Defined Data Centers.

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