The Software-Defined Datacenter is Here (Sort of)

Initial results of our Software-Defined Datacenter (SDDC) survey show that 35% of the organizations either have a SDDC project right now or plan on starting one within the next 6 months. Another 13% of the respondents are planning on starting in 6-12 months.

The survey shows the top drivers towards the Software-Defined Datacenter are increasing IT productivity, ensuring adherence to standards, cost savings, and improving datacenter quality.

But the transition is not without challenges, including lack of mature tools, difficulties implementing new processes and standards, the need to acquire new skills, and getting buy-in from management and staff.

While some experts view the Software-Defined Datacenter range as a potential game-changer, others are somewhat more cautious and think it may still be a few years away from being a ubiquitous reality. Gartner, which has previously talked about the Integrated Data Center, the Intelligent Data Center, and the Virtual Data Center, is already moving away from the SDDC to yet another new concept – the Enterprise-Defined Datacenter.

Maybe most concerning is the lack of confidence seen in our preliminary survey results – not even a single respondent said they were very confident in the resiliency of their software-defined datacenter elements.

Do these preliminary results match your experience? It will be interesting to see whether these results change as more responses are added over the coming weeks.

And there is more valuable information in the survey results, including what portions of the datacenter are on the forefront of the software-defined movement, what tools are used, and what benefits organizations have realized so far from the transition to the software-defined datacenter.