The 5 Lies People Love to TellAbout the Software Defined Datacenter

It looks like a box! It can’t be software

defined!

Dave WrightCEO & FounderSolidFire

“My vendor pitch will teach you about the SDDC!”

The SolidFire SolutionScale-out high performance storage systems designed for large scale infrastructure

Largest and fastest all-SSD storage system5 – 100 nodes, 60TB – 3.4PB, 7.5M IOPS Industry-standard hardware, 10 GigE

Rich software-defined feature setMulti-tenantGuaranteed QoS / Performance SLAsComprehensive REST APIsDeep OpenStack, CloudStack, and VMware Integration

Complete set of enterprise data services

Software Defined Storage ^

Validated in the

most demanding

Enterprise and

Service Provider

datacenters

Software Defined

“You can’t define the software-defined-datacenter – it’s just a buzzword like cloud!”

-The Slashdot Crowd

Lie #1

Defining the Software Defined

Datacenter

A pooled-resource model for datacenter management that eliminates silos of compute, storage, and networking created around individual applications

…with software-based provisioning, control, and reporting…that is vendor agnostic to the underlying compute, storage, and networking resources…and de-couples application provisioning from the physical hardware it is using…turning the datacenter into a resource that can be programmed like software

So what really matters in the

SDDC?

Vendor-neutral datacenter management tools that support a wide range of underlying systems

Extremely simple management and comprehensive APIs for all infrastructure elements

Software and systems that are designed for multi-tenancy

Underlying infrastructure that can deliver a consistent level of resources and performance with Guaranteed QoS

“Everyone needs a Software Defined Data Center”

-Anyone selling SDDC

Lie #2

Most companies don’t even need their own “data

center” anymore

SDDC really only matters at scale Scale where the efficiency of pooled

infrastructure matters Scale where the up-front complexity of systems

integration pays off in operational savings Scale where the rate of infrastructure change is

a barrier to progress …and…

If you aren’t at scale, you probably shouldn’t be running your own infrastructure anyway

Host it with someone who does(and they probably have a SDDC)

Define “not at scale”: Today: Less than 300 virtual machines Soon: Less than 3000

“SDDC is just virtualization. We already do that.”

-Overworked IT Departments

Lie #3

Virtualization was just the start of the

SDDC

Virtualization showed the power of a pooled model for compute

Don’t need to dedicated servers to each application

Rapid deployment of new “virtual” machines VM sizing not tied to physical hardware

…but it didn’t fundamentally change the management paradigm

Infrastructure still under administrator control Primarily a manual provisioning model

…and it really only covered compute Storage systems and networking still managed

separately Multiple toolsets and teams required to get

anything done

“You can’t be ‘software-defined’ if you include hardware.”

-People trying to sell storage system software

Lie #4

“Software-defined” is

about management,

not a sales model

You can’t have a software defined datacenter without hardware

Modern storage systems are virtually all “software-based”, whether sold as software or bundled with hardware

The storage system should be part of the data plane, not the control plane

The storage system is the resource to be managed, not the resource manager

But where do you draw the line for advanced functionality like snapshots, replication, deduplication, and backup?

“Converged infrastructure is required for the SDDC.”

-CI Vendors

Lie #5

Converged infrastructure

can simplify building a

SDDC, but it’s neither

necessary nor sufficient

Solutions that integrate compute, storage, networking hardware with smart management software can be part of a SDDC

…but it’s not required…nor does it mean that every converged infrastructure offering is a SDDC

And there are trade-offs that run counter to the SDDC

Vendor lock-in to specific infrastructure elements?

Inability to integrate best-of-breed

Many advantages of pre-built converged infrastructure disappear at larger scales

The All Flash Array for theNext Generation Data CenterSoftware Defined