The Journey Toward the Software-Defined Data Center - Cognizant

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• Self-heal solutions: In an SDDC, automationservices wherever possible will identify,diagnose, correlate and isolate incidents, andresolve them.• Orchestration and third-party plug-ins:Workflow through orchestration tools andplug-in/APIs with third-party products isneeded to control data center resource consumptionin an SDDC. The management andmonitoring stack will therefore need to beinterleaved through these APIs to apply intelligenceand predict the behavior of the systems.• Analytics engine and data store: Withprogrammatically controlled infrastructurearchitecture, there will be huge amountsof audit, log and change management datagenerated as resource consumption changes.This data surge will require a database withan ability to cull relevant information feedingvarious systems for information retrievaland reporting. Analytics and intelligence tocorrelate events, along with a comprehensivedata store capability, will be in high demand insuch scenarios.Adoption PathDepending on the infrastructure’s maturity,the enterprise needs to draw up a roadmap toleverage the benefits of SDDC. While SDDC itselfis evolving, enterprises must take a proactiveview and consider a data center designed for thefuture, designed for change and nimble enough toadapt to ever-changing technology levers.Figure 9 depicts the data center maturity curveneeded for organizations to take initial stepstoward SDDC.The “inception” to “functioning data center”stage essentially depicts the level of virtualizationadopted in the enterprise. The “functioningdata center” state to “performing data center”state depicts improvements in virtualizationmaturity coupled with active automation, selfserviceportals and converged infrastructure.“Envisaged SDDC” represents the future goal of adata center integrated with legacy infrastructureand aligned with complete automated operationsconnected to unified fabric. While we know that atrue software-defined data center does not existcurrently, the steps taken will serve as a businessdifferentiator for enterprises and bring aboutflexibility and fungibility across IT functions comprisingarchitecture and operations. Enterprisesimplementing greenfield data center builds areoften the prime candidates to leverage the SDDCconcept by aligning to the principles of virtualizationin their infrastructure footprints.SDDC Adoption Roadmap• Provide a dynamic infrastructure througha service catalog driven by portal.• Highly visible and proactive operationswith an automation architecture.25% Virtualized• Virtualization used indevelpment and testenvironments.• No data centerconsolidation/serversprawls.• Infrastructure dedicatedto applications.75% VirtualizedTipping Point• Need to extend virtualizationto tier-one application.• Automation-led provisioningof individual systems basedon predefined templates.• Virtualization categories(machine, storage, network,app) run independently.• Proactive availability andperformance monitoring.95% Virtualized• Self-service portals and welldefined service catalogsmapped to application stacks.• Business requirements andSLAs drive computeconfigurations.• Full stack integrationorchestrated throughoptimized process andtechnology.• Converged infrastructure andconverged management.• Active automation.• Service portals provide businessservices that directly map tounderlying IT.• Converged infrastructure and unifiedfabric including facilities withmanagement.• Legacy infrastructure integrationcapabilities.• Virtual resources predictivelyallocated based on business need.• Resource lifecycle managed bypolicy and cost justification.• Dynamic compute configuration basedon changing business needs and SLAs.• Dynamic business service mapping toinfrastructure elements. Real-timevisibility to service availability andperformance.Inception Functioning DC Performing DC Envisaged SDDCFigure 9cognizant 20-20 insights 8
Steps to Move Toward SDDCTo move forward, enterprises need to embracethe following:• Overcome the resistance to change and havea sustained vision for SDDC, since it could be along journey for organizations to take.• Get formal training on the concept.• Undertake an exercise to refine and validatefunctionality, licensing policies and supportfrom OEM partners for business applicationsand commercial off the shelf (COTS) productsto be used.• Create an impact assessment and implementationplan to align SDDC with server buildarchitects, network and security architects andstorage architects.• Onboard and evaluate a data center facilitiesoperator for converged infrastructure implementation.• Hire an IT security officer to revisit standardsand adhere to common objective and securitybasedgoals for the organization.• Test, undertake a pilot and roll out.ChallengesTo translate the SDDC vision into reality and mainstreamadoption, the industry has to overcomeseveral challenges, including:• Given that an enterprise data center will havedifferent infrastructure maturity standards,the SDDC stack must have a mechanism toidentify legacy infrastructure and physicalinfrastructure and be intuitive enough to havea programmatically controlled environment tointegrate such SDDC nuances.• A common open standards-based frameworkfor software defined networking (SDN) andsoftware defined storage (SDS) to leverage andimplement SDDC and interoperability amongOEM partners.• Converged infrastructure and products fromOEM vendors could potentially have a vendorlock-in.• All-inclusive management and monitoringtools to encompass compute, storage, networkand facilities, as well as building managementsystems and a tightly-coupled automation andorchestration solution.Apart from this, enterprises have to overcomeinherent inertia and maintain a sustained SDDCvision.BenefitsEnterprises will have to wait to see what benefitsaccrue to SDDC as an end-state solution or vision,similar to early-stage adopters of private cloudservices. However, SDDC offers further efficiencyand effectiveness in the way IT meets businessdemands. Considering the hypothetical state ofsoftware-defined network implementation, theorganization can initially benefit from the virtualport of a device to be programmatically controlledto function as a router or firewall or a loadbalancer. This will eliminate the need for physicaldevices for each IT function, thereby enablingenterprises to leverage an optimized infrastructurefootprint. Having said this, hardware cannotbe eliminated in an SDDC; hardware restrictions(in terms of bandwidth capability for throughput)and storage IOPS capabilities will be governed bythe physical hardware deployed. Similarly, withsoftware-defined storage virtualized data can beseparated from the physical location of the userto ensure efficient handling of data retrieval andupdates. Other benefits include:• A single view of skills required to administer theentire IT footprint, rather than managing andadministering individual, siloed IT components.Fungible skills in the IT environment will be theway forward.• Achieve standardization across processes andsystems and increase utilization of resourcesprovisioned within a data center.• Transform enterprises to be more fungible andagile to meet business demands in a challengingand dynamic business environment.• Enable enterprises to provide and build just-intimeenvironments rather than an infrastructureprocurement process for each and everybusiness application.• Enable enterprises to potentially achieve selfserviceversus multiple handoffs/touch pointswithin the IT team for resolving issues or forspecific request fulfillments with regard to provisioningor capacity enhancements.• Enable integration and holistic cross-pollinationof IT systems.cognizant 20-20 insights 9
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The Journey Toward the Software-Defined Data Center - Cognizant

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