The Future is Software Driven and Virtualization is the Path Forward

Last week, we launched a special report series on virtual interconnection. This week, we’ll look at why the future of IT infrastructure is software-driven.

Get the full report.

To wean themselves from legacy infrastructure, organizations need to virtualize as much as possible.

Virtualization technology enables business agility by separating physical infrastructure from the applications that use it. This creates the foundation for software-defined infrastructure, in which hardware is treated as a single virtual pool that can be managed almost entirely in software, thus permitting automation to be applied at scale.

Virtualization technology has been used in data centers for many years to consolidate workloads on a small number of physical servers that operate at high capacity. Nearly any kind of infrastructure can now be virtualized, including storage, networks, desktops, and even data. Removing physical hardware dependence from the equation enables greater flexibility by allowing IT organizations to replace expensive proprietary hardware with low-cost commodity devices and to more easily accommodate peaks and valleys in demand.

Redundancy is built into software-defined infrastructure. If a piece of equipment fails, other resources can instantly be deployed to take over, often without any noticeable impact on performance.

Software-defined infrastructure is an evolution of virtualization in which the entire IT resource is managed as a single pool. This allows resources to be utilized more efficiently because they can be allocated as needed to accommodate demand. There are numerous advantages to this approach.

Just 30% of organizations had virtualized networks as of last year but adoption is likely to grow at double-digit annual rates going forward. Organizations that act quickly to adopt network virtualization can steal a march on their competitors.

Server virtualization is a mature technology that is now used by 92% of businesses, according to Spiceworks research. Other categories are still moving up the adoption curve. For example, the study found that just 30% of organizations had virtualized networks as of last year but adoption is likely to grow at double-digit annual rates going forward. Organizations that act quickly to adopt network virtualization can steal a march on their competitors.

Download the full report, How Virtual Interconnection Supports Distributed Digital Business, courtesy of DataBank to learn more. In our next article, we’ll look at the benefits of virtualizing interconnection. Catch up on the last article here.