THE STATE OF THE
VIRTUALIZED
DATA CENTER
Business trends and perspectives on
the deployment and implementation of
network virtualization technologies
TOPICS
2
Business Trends
Software-Defined Networking and Virtualization
Virtualization and Simplified Architecture
Business Continuity
Security
Management
1
2
3
4
5
6
3
BUSINESS TRENDS
State of the Network Study conducted by Network World
in October 2012
Computerworld’s 2013 State of the Enterprise Survey
State of the Network Study conducted by Network World in
October 2013 - commissioned by Juniper Networks
4
BUSINESS TRENDS
Importance of infrastructure technologies for creating a competitive advantage
57% 56%
IT and network
services managementVirtualization
5
BUSINESS TRENDS
34% of IT professionals are ready or planning to roll out desktop, storage
or network virtualization
4%
17%
18%
16%
30%
15%
New to us
Investigating
Ready to rollout
Planning to rollout in next 1-3 years
Fully deployed
Not on our radar
6
BUSINESS TRENDS
Virtualization is dependent
on the network, and the
network is incredibly
complex.
At least half of IT leaders said network complexity is
holding back virtualization for networks, storage,
applications and servers
SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKING AND
VIRTUALIZATION
7
More than half the respondents will evaluate software-defined networks (SDN)
within the next two years to help automate and simplify network operations
18%
16%
18%
52%
In the process of
evaluating
Will evaluate in the next
12 months
Will evaluate 12 – 24
months from now
SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKING AND
VIRTUALIZATION
8
• Facilitates virtualized networks by abstracting lower-level functionality
• Decouples the control plane from the data plane
• Enables direct programmatic control of the network
• Management and operation of the network is handled and automated in a centralized
controller
• Provides network admins more granular control
• Network designers must consider entire infrastructure when creating workloads
Controller
SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKING AND
VIRTUALIZATION
9
• Nearly half of respondents have or expect to run into skill gaps when deploying SDN
• They also worry about lack of proven ROI
IT skill gaps
Unsure of ROI/ immature technology
Integrating with current technology
Staff resource constraints
Cultural barriers within IT
Business disruption/
downtime during transition
49%
48%
43%
39%
26%
24%
10
• Benefits of implementing SDN
– Increased network efficiency
– Improved IT services delivery
– Lower operating costs due to centralized network management
– Reduced capital expenditures
– Less dependence on proprietary hardware, dedicated appliances
and application-specific devices
SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKING AND
VIRTUALIZATION
VIRTUALIZATION AND SIMPLIFIED ARCHITECTURE
11
• Nearly 70% of organizations with more than 1,000 employees have plans to
simplify the IT structure to accelerate virtualization and cloud
• One in five are creating new IT teams to redesign the network
Consolidating/merging IT teams
Creating new team dedicated to
re-architecting network
Creating other new IT teams
Other
No changes planned to IT structure
37%
20%
7%
3%
51%
VIRTUALIZATION AND SIMPLIFIED ARCHITECTURE
12
More than half are planning to change or upgrade the network to increase
support for virtualization
Planning significant changes
Planning moderate changes
Planning to virtualize entire
network
Planning minimal changes
Don’t know
17%
39%
2%
36%
6%
BUSINESS CONTINUITY
13
Network availability
Network security
Continuous data access
Data protection
User connectivity
Data replication
85%
74%
64%
61%
59%
52%
• Nearly all respondents
report that business
continuity and disaster
recovery (BC/DR) are
considered when
planning network
changes
• Network availability,
network security and
user connectivity are
top considerations
BUSINESS CONTINUITY
14
Legacy infrastructure is cited as the top challenge in improving BC/DR
Legacy infrastructure
Multiple failure points
Security gaps
No clear requirements
Inconsistent policies
42%
28%
28%
26%
23%Infrastructure sprawl
Manual backup and
configuration
Traffic not prioritized
27%
22%
19%
SECURITY
15
Majority of respondents report that network security is a primary
consideration
Upfront consideration
Mid implementation
Post-data center implementation
59%
28%
7%
SECURITY
16
Top considerations when evaluating network security solutions to support a
virtualized environment
Full visibility and access control
No performance sacrifice
Integrated virtual and physical security
Detailed reporting and logging
80%
74%
63%
63%
MANAGEMENT
17
• Optimal network management requires a single interface that provides visibility
into both the virtual and physical networks
• Helps organizations identify the source of performance and other issues
• Also provides a single interface to automate behavior across the entire network
SIMPLE, OPEN, SMART
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• Many IT organizations have virtualized their data center resources
• But, to achieve even greater levels of agility and flexibility, they need to also
virtualize the network
• Juniper Networks MetaFabric™ architecture:
– Enables simple, open and smart data centers
– Accelerates the deployment and delivery of applications within
and across multiple sites and clouds
Simple SmartOpen
Easy to
deploy & use
Save time,
improve performance
Maximize
flexibility
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Download the Network World eGuide:
“The State of the Virtualized Data Center”
Click Here