vMWare - Introduction to the Software-Defined Data Center

The software-defined data center (SDDC) architecture enables a fully automated, zero-downtime infrastructure for any application, and any hardware, now and in the future.

An Evolutionary Journey with Game-Changing Results

Enterprises worldwide have used VMware vSphere® to significantly improve IT efficiency and performance, yet the mobile cloud era presents new challenges. To meet this challenge, IT organizations need to virtualize
the rest of the data center so all infrastructure services become as inexpensive and easy to provision and manage as virtual machines.

The answer is the software-defined data center (SDDC): the ideal architecture for private, public, and hybrid clouds. Pioneered by VMware and recognized by the industry and analysts alike, SDDC extends the
virtualization concepts you know— abstraction, pooling and automation — to all data center resources and services. Components of the SDDC can be implemented together, or in phases:

Compute virtualization, network virtualization and software-defined storage deliver abstraction, pooling and automation of the compute, network, and storage infrastructure services.

Automated management delivers a framework for policy-based management of data center application and services.

In a software-defined data center, policy-driven automation enables provisioning and ongoing management of logical compute, storage and network services. The result is unprecedented IT agility and efficiency, with flexibility to support today and tomorrow's
hardware and applications. Benefits include:

Virtualization economics across your data center – Software-defined data center technology helps attain new levels of infrastructure utilization and staff productivity, substantially reducing both capital expenditures
and operating costs.

Applications at business speed – Enabling deployment of applications in minutes or even seconds with policy-driven provisioning that dynamically matches resources to continually changing workloads and business demands.

Business-aware IT control – Driving right availability, security and compliance for every application via automated business continuity, policy-based governance and virtualization-aware security and compliance.

Your data center on your terms – The software-defined data center can be leveraged as a private, hybrid or public cloud—in each case, infrastructure is fully abstracted from applications so they can run on multiple hardware stacks, hypervisors and clouds.

Building a Software-Defined Data Center with VMware

VMware offers you several options for implementing the software-defined data center architecture in your private data center and beyond:

As a Private Cloud

VMware vCloud® Suite — Build and run your vSphere-based private cloud

Turn your data center into a vSphere-based private cloud using the software-defined datacenter architecture. Deliver the best SLAs for all applications through software-defined services, policy-based provisioning and automated operations management.

vCloud Suite

As a Hybrid Cloud

VMware vCloud® Hybrid Service™ — Your fastest route to a seamless hybrid cloud.

In just hours, extend your data center with a public Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) built on VMware's software-defined data center technology, operated and supported by VMware and fully compatible with your data center environment.

vCloud Hybrid Service

Public cloud services from VMware partners — IT resources when you need them.

Robust, secure and flexible services delivered by our global ecosystem of certified VMware service providers:

vCloud Data Center Services
vCloud Powered Services

By integrating a private cloud with a public cloud built on software-defined data center technology, your data center becomes a true hybrid cloud platform, seamlessly spanning on-premises and off-premises environments
with a common management, orchestration, networking and security model.

Learn More

See http://www.vmware.com/software-defined-datacenter for more information.