Dell Technologies Accelerates Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Portfolio Growth; Simplifies Path to VMware-based Clouds

@DellEMC #VxRail and #VxRack #SDDC advancements offer greater performance and adoption of next generation technologies for multi-clouds in VMware environments NEWS PROVIDED BY Dell Technologies 13:00 ET LAS VEGAS, May 1, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- @DellTechnologies World -- News summary No.1 market leader in global #hyperconverged infrastructure ( #HCI ) system sales advances portfolio after 145% reported worldwide revenue growth in 20171 @DellEMC #VxRail adopts advanced technologies, including NVMe and #25Gbps networking connectivity, to greatly speed access to data and applications Dell EMC #VxRack #SDDC simplifies management and improves performance, built on VxRail hardware with Dell EMC #PowerEdge 14th generation servers Dell EMC VxRail and VxRack SDDC offer clear path to adopt @VMware-based private, hybrid and multi-clouds Full story Dell Technologies is launching new hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) advancements to further simplify customer IT transformations with more powerful systems. New Dell EMC VxRail Appliances and VxRack SDDC Systems further extend Dell EMC's HCI global systems sales leadership1 with adoption of advanced technologies and the latest innovations from Dell EMC and VMware. The combined technologies can accelerate customers' abilities to transform to modern, multi-cloud environments. "As HCI systems are increasingly being used for core data center applications, customers are adopting VxRail and VxRack SDDC as the foundation for deploying clouds of all types," said Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, president and general manager, Dell EMC Server and Infrastructure Systems. "These technologies, co-developed by Dell EMC and VMware, offer a simple and clearly defined path to private, hybrid and multi-clouds to help our customers transform their IT infrastructure to free up valuable staff time while enabling IT to be the enabler for faster, nimbler businesses." Results of the ESG 2018 IT Transformation Maturity Study, sponsored by Dell EMC and released this month, demonstrate that: An overwhelming majority of transformed companies–98%–use either converged infrastructure (CI) or HCI, and 86% report using both Transformed companies report running an average of more than 35% of their applications on CI/HCI, quantifying their operational expenditure savings at 25% on average Organizations running cloud-like IaaS are operating on-premises infrastructure more than two and a half times as cost-effectively as public cloud alternatives According to IDC, global HCI system sales surpassed $3.7 billion in 2017 vendor revenue, up 64.3% from 2016, as the fastest growing segment of the overall converged systems market. Dell EMC led all vendors in global HCI systems sales in 2017, with a 27.1% revenue share while growing 145% year over year at a rate more than 2.25 times faster than the overall industry.1 Meanwhile, IDC predicts the HCI solutions market will reach $10.3 billion by 2022. Dell EMC VxRail and VxRack SDDC adopt advanced technologies as ideal foundation for multi-cloud strategies Dell EMC VxRail, the top selling Dell EMC HCI solution from the world's leading HCI systems portfolio, is now even more flexible and powerful with the addition of several advanced technologies. VxRail continues to set the standard for simplifying and modernizing VMware environments, regardless of where an organization is on their IT transformation journey. Continuing to be integrated with VMware vSAN and vSphere software, new VxRail advancements include the adoption of: NVMe cache drive options future-proof enhanced performance with dramatically lower latency and higher performance than existing SAS based cache drives Powerful Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors, supporting up to 1.5TB of RAM per CPU socket for 2x more memory (up to 3TB per node) NVIDIA® Tesla® P40 GPU accelerators providing 2x performance and 50% more users for high-end graphics use cases such as those needed by CAD developers and designers New 25GbE networking provides the most aggregate bandwidth of any other HCI appliance and up to 50% more networking connectivity options than the previous generation2 Support for the Dell EMC Networking S4112-ON half-width, 10 and 25 GbE Open Networking switch, a space-saving top-of-rack switch, purpose-built for software-defined data center environments New simplified management experience with VxRail Manager Events consolidation and viewing in VMware vCenter New VxRail STIG Compliance Guide and automated scripts harden the storage, virtualization and networking components to accelerate deployments of secure infrastructure Additionally, for customers looking to build a complete Software-Defined Data Center using VxRail as a building block, they can use the guidance of the latest VMware Validated Designs (VVD). Using the guidance of VVD for SDDC 4.2 for VxRail, customers can more easily architect an SDDC with complete NSX and vRealize functionality with less risk.  Dell EMC VxRack SDDC is the ultimate infrastructure foundation for realizing a multi-cloud vision. It is the only turnkey cloud platform, based on VxRail hardware, built on 14th generation PowerEdge servers, delivered with integrated networking, and powered by VMware Cloud Foundation and Dell EMC software. VxRack SDDC delivers the simplest path to a hybrid or multi-cloud approach with an automated elastic cloud infrastructure at rack scale. Updates to VxRack SDDC, the most advanced VMware Cloud Foundation integrated system2, meet a variety of customer cloud use cases with: New, more powerful configurations built on VxRail hardware with the latest Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation server platforms, designed for HCI deployments, to accelerate IT services and application delivery New enhancements for VDI with support for NVIDIA® graphics processing cards The latest VMware Cloud Foundation 2.3 with newly integrated cloud management and automation for on-premises IT-as-a-Service (IaaS) and more flexibility to scale with heterogeneous server support Exclusive SDDC automation and serviceability extensions integrated with VMware Cloud Foundation that extend the management experience and simplify cloud-ready operations Availability Dell EMC VxRail Appliances and Dell EMC VxRack SDDC Systems updates are available globally now.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dell-technologies-accelerates-hyper-converged-infrastructure-portfolio-growth-simplifies-path-to-vmware-based-clouds-300640020.html

CRN Names Nexenta to 2018 Software-Defined Data Center 50 List

SAN JOSE, Calif., April 16, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nexenta (@Nexenta), the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage ( #OpenSDS ), announced today that CRN®, a brand of @The Channel Company, has named Nexenta to its 2018 #SoftwareDefined Data Center 50 list. #SDDC The list recognizes companies that are teaming with solution providers to give dramatic advances in data center compute, storage and network automation and intelligence. The 2018 Software-Defined Data Center 50 is based on ongoing feedback throughout the year from solution providers on the strength of the vendors’ technology portfolio, channel influence, effectiveness and visibility, along with business and sales impact on the channel. Nexenta offers an all-encompassing portfolio of market-leading software-defined storage products. Designed to give customers scalable and flexible storage while lowering your TCO, Nexenta’s product portfolio ultimately creates a tailored solution to fit your enterprise needs. Nexenta’s portfolio includes: NexentaStor: Nexenta’s flagship Open Source-driven Software Defined Storage (OpenSDS) solution delivers unified file and block storage services, runs on industry standard hardware, scales from tens of terabytes to petabyte configurations, and includes all data management functionality by default. NexentaEdge: Provides scale-out Object (S3 and Swift), Block, and File storage services supplying cluster-wide inline deduplication, compression and enterprise grade data integrity. NexentaCloud: Based on NexentaStor, NexentaCloud in AWS allows customers to leverage the public cloud, for use cases including disaster recovery, to deliver enterprise storage with a consistent storage management framework across your hybrid cloud. NexentaFusion: Simplified scaling and management through a single pane for reporting, monitoring, analytics, and orchestration for your storage assets.  “CRN’s 2018 Software-Defined Data Center 50 are being singled out for innovative software that is automating and simplifying compute, storage and networking," said Bob Skelley, CEO of The Channel Company. “These software-defined data center leaders are working hand in hand with partners to deliver intelligent applications and automate once-labor-intensive infrastructure management. We congratulate them for their innovative products and for their commitment to delivering more intelligent and dynamic infrastructure for customers transforming their businesses. These vendors are making the promise of the autonomous data center a reality.” “It is an honor to be recognized again in CRN Software-Defined Data Center 50 list,” said Don Lopes, Vice President, Marketing & Channels. “As a leader in SDDC technologies, this award reflects the success we’ve achieved with our partners as they look to give agile, multi-protocol SDS solutions, running on all-flash to all-HDD in public, private, hybrid, and multi cloud environments.   ” The Software-Defined Data Center 50 list is featured online at www.CRN.com/sddc50.

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/04/16/1472146/0/en/CRN-Names-Nexenta-to-2018-Software-Defined-Data-Center-50-List.html

Pluribus Networks Recognized on CRN’s Software-Defined Data Center 50 List

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pluribus Networks announced today that CRN®, a brand of @The Channel Company, has named the company to its 2018 #SoftwareDefined Data Center           (#SDDC)50 list. The list recognizes companies that are teaming with solution providers to provide dramatic advances in data center compute, storage and network automation and intelligence. The 2018 Software-Defined Data Center 50 is based on ongoing feedback throughout the year from solution providers on the strength of the vendors’ technology portfolio, channel influence, effectiveness and visibility, along with business and sales impact on the channel. New award for @PluribusNet, who made the 2018 @CRN Software-Defined Data Center 50 list. #channel #award #SDDC #SDN #pluribusnetworks Tweet this “CRN’s 2018 Software-Defined Data Center 50 are being singled out for innovative software that is automating and simplifying compute, storage and networking," said Bob Skelley, CEO of The Channel Company. “These software-defined data center leaders are working hand in hand with partners to deliver intelligent applications and automate once-labor-intensive infrastructure management. We congratulate them for their innovative products and for their commitment to delivering more intelligent and dynamic infrastructure for customers transforming their businesses. These vendors are making the promise of the autonomous data center a reality.” “We are honored to be recognized by CRN as one of the top software-defined data center vendors for a second year in a row,” said Steven Shalita, vice president of marketing and business development at Pluribus Networks. “This recognition acknowledges our focus on building strong relationships with channel partners and highlights the increasing market adoption of our Netvisor ONE® Operating System and the Pluribus Adaptive Cloud Fabric™, which greatly simplify software-defined architectures, enabling a higher adoption and a broader range of deployments across enterprise networks.” Pluribus Networks will be at RSA in North Hall booth 4542 to highlight how to leverage SDN for data center security. The Software-Defined Data Center 50 list is featured online at http://www.crn.com/sddc50

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180416005866/en/Pluribus-Networks-Recognized-CRN%E2%80%99s-Software-Defined-Data-Center

Delta Electronics Showcases Agema® High-Port Density 400GbE & 100GbE Platforms at OCP Summit 2018

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- @DeltaElectronics, delivering on its commitment to leverage and contribute to open innovation, today announces it will demonstrate its industry-leading ICT infrastructure product portfolio at @OCP Summit 2018 (booth B48), including its Agema® #400GbE and #100GbE high-density #whitebox switches for top-tier #datacenter applications. The showcase will also include the company's leading OCP racks and accessories, on-shelf power units and 400GbE optical transceivers. Delta's solutions offer extensive capabilities for hybrid and flow-based networking platforms, providing customers a choice of future-proof, cost effective Software-Defined Networking ( #SDN), #SDWAN Software Defined WAN (SDWAN), and Software-defined data center (#SDDC) solutions to create next-gen, dynamic networks. With Delta's high-performance hybrid networking gears, infrastructure and network transformation can be seamless. Among the top products on display will be Delta's best-in-class Agema® data center and carrier-grade white-box open networking platforms, which provide customers with a choice of hardware and ecosystems, while reducing CAPEX and OPEX. Adding to its white-box product portfolios, Delta is introducing new industry-leading products: AGC032, a 32-port 400GbE highly-scalable switch with 12.8 terabits backplane for aggregation and super spine deployments; AG9032v2, a 32-port 100GbE scalable, programmable and content-aware switch; and AG9064, a 64-port 100GbE high density 2 RU switch based on Broadcom® StrataXGS™ ASIC. These terabit solutions provide the perfect complement to Delta's high-performance open networking 1G/10G/25G/40G/100G/400G product lines

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/delta-electronics-showcases-agema-high-port-density-400gbe--100gbe-platforms-at-ocp-summit-2018-300616840.html

Michael Dell: On-Premises Solutions Are More 'Cost Effective' Than Public Cloud For 85 To 90 Percent Of Workloads

@DellTechnologies CEO @Michael Dell said that with the rise of the  #softwaredefined data center on-premises solutions are more cost effective 85 percent to 90 percent of the time compared to the public cloud. "What we have seen when you automate and modernize the infrastructure, software-define everything, and move up to the platform level, is that for the predictable workloads – which are for most companies 85 percent to 90 percent of their workloads – an on-premises solution is much more cost effective," said Dell, in an interview with CRN Thursday. While public cloud vendors have built software-defined/automated IT services creating a very attractive interface for developers, those great technology advances are "not unique to the public cloud," said Dell. "So what's happening is this idea of automating everything and software-defining everything, and getting to kind of autonomous operations of infrastructure is occurring all across the computing spectrum," said Dell. "So it's happening in the private clouds, it's happening at the edge, happening at the distributed core, public clouds, Software-as-a-Service, managed services – everybody's going in that direction." Dell said the issue of public vs. private cloud is a workload-dependent discussion. He pointed to Dell Technologies' massive deferred revenue growth as evidence of the rise of on-premises private cloud/hybrid cloud momentum. Dell Technologies this month reported deferred revenue of $22.2 billion for its fourth fiscal quarter, up $3.6 billion year over year.

https://www.crn.com/news/data-center/300100761/michael-dell-on-premises-solutions-are-more-cost-effective-than-public-cloud-for-85-to-90-percent-of-workloads.htm

Dell EMC VP Envisions IaaS, PaaS And Container Services Running On VMware Cloud Foundation

@DellEMC 's #softwaredefined data center road map revolves around providing services on @VMware 's Cloud Foundation platform. "We envision infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, container as a service, running on VMware Cloud Foundation, running on #VxRack, which is built using our #hyperconverged infrastructure appliance, #VxRail," said @ChadDunn, vice president of product management and marketing at Dell EMC, in an interview with CRN. Dunn, an 11-year Dell EMC veteran, is the product leader for Dell EMC's hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) products, responsible for strategy and the technology road map. He said many Dell customers are in different maturity stages in rolling out a software-defined data center (SDDC) strategy. [Related: Dell CFO Sweet: Positive Impact Of Tax Reform Should Offset Any Negatives In The Long Term] "Some are starting on hyper-converged appliances, building out large environments with the intent to move to a VxRack or a Cloud Foundation infrastructure later on. Then we have others that are starting right out of the gate with VxRack SDDC, which includes the Cloud Foundation software – vSAN, vSphere -- and all the components to sort of orchestrate that environment as a system," said Dunn. "That's really what our strategy is about -- how do we make infrastructures like that turnkey and very easy for our customers to get to value quickly on." The company has a turnkey HCI appliance, VxRail, as well as a rack-scale software-defined solution, VxRack SDDC – both of which are co-engineered with VMware. VMware Cloud Foundation is VMware's unified SDDC platform that brings together VMware vSphere, vSAN, and its software-defined networking product, NSX, into a natively integrated stack to deliver cloud infrastructure. [Sponsored Suggested Post: The C-Level Newsletter - Executive Voices. Exclusive Insights. News, interviews & perspectives on executives shaping the IT channel. Subscribe Today VxRail is Dell EMC's fastest-growing product with 75 percent of sales being fulfilled by channel partners, according to Dunn. He said the company is enabling partners to sell the HCI offering through certifications and its VxRail Xpert program, which is an exam-based curriculum. "Once you're in [Xpert], you get early access to a lot of insight information on VxRail, what our product road maps are, what our performance characteristics are so that you have a deeper level of understanding of the technology," said Dunn. "You can more easily offer it to your clients." Dell EMC was named a Leader in Gartner's first-ever Magic Quadrant for Hyper-Converged Infrastructure this year, ranked No. 2 in execution and No.3 in vision on the quadrant. VMware, which Dell Technologies owns an 82 percent stake in, ranked No. 2 in vision and No. 3 in execution on the quadrant.

https://www.crn.com/news/data-center/300100691/dell-emc-vp-envisions-iaas-paas-and-container-services-running-on-vmware-cloud-foundation.htm

Windows Server 2016 hyper-converged options are here

The latest edition of Windows Server from Microsoft includes options for implementing a hyper-converged infrastructure in a Microsoft-only IT operation. Microsoft has added hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities to Windows Server 2016. This makes it possible for organizations to implement a software-defined data center based on Windows Server and Microsoft-validated hardware.

@Microsoft 's Windows Server 2016 hyper-converged infrastructure ( #HCI ) story begins with the Windows Server Software Defined ( #WSSD ) program, a system for creating validated software-defined data center ( #SDDC) designs in conjunction with Microsoft partners, such as @Dell EMC, @Hewlett Packard Enterprise, @Fujitsu and @Lenovo. With an SDDC, virtualized, clustered servers function as consolidated resource pools.

The goal of the WSSD program is to ensure that customers deploy and operate their Windows Server SDDC implementations on validated hardware. To this end, the program provides guidance for designing reference architectures and performing SDDC-specific testing. The program also offers "experience guides" and automation scripts to deploy and manage HCI systems.

Some Microsoft partners already offer WSSD-approved systems that are configured and tuned for specific data center workloads. As of this writing, the WSSD program supports three categories of SDDC implementations: Converged Software-Defined Storage (SDS), HCI Standard and HCI Premium.

http://searchconvergedinfrastructure.techtarget.com/tip/Windows-Server-2016-hyper-converged-options-are-here

How Virtualization Supports Healthcare Data Storage Needs

December 29, 2017 - Entities need to consider how to best address future healthcare data storage needs as the amount of data collected by digital devices continues to grow exponentially. Organizations have several options including public and #privatecloud storage. However #softwaredefinedstorage ( #SDS ) has emerged as another way to store vast amounts of data using #virtualization. Research and Markets predicted the SDS market will reach $42 billion by 2023, up from $4 billion in 2017, and grow at a CAGR of 39 percent in that time. Dig Deeper Benefits of #SoftwareDefinedNetworking in #Healthcare How #VirtualDesktopInfrastructure Supports Patient Care Healthcare Public Cloud Answers #DataStorage Demands The lack of workforce available to accommodate for the growth of traditional on-premises #datacenters is one of the main drivers for virtualized storage techniques. Virtualization scales back the amount of physical space needed to store data, meaning that organizations don’t need to hire additional staff. SDS is one of the architectural components that typically makes up a software-defined data center ( #SDDC). The other components include computer virtualization such as workspace-as-a-service and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and also software-defined networking. SDDC, sometimes referred to as a virtual data center, covers virtualization concepts geared toward automating and abstracting data center resources. Each element of the infrastructure - including networking, security, and storage - is virtualized and implemented as a service. SDDC uses abstraction to bring different components of infrastructure architecture together, usually managed through an application programming interface (API). The number of virtualized solutions within an SDDC makes it complicated to manage without an API assisting the developer. APIs abstract the layers of virtual technology within the data center, only displaying functions critical to the developer making the SDDC easier to manage. SDDC is not a technology organizations can adopt in one deployment and it’s rare to see any organization running on a fully virtual environment. Gartner outlined in an SDDC market overview that many organizations may be several years away from implementing an SDDC infrastructure or any other virtual infrastructure. “Simply changing a legacy infrastructure for a set of software-defined products is unlikely to yield the desired benefits,” Gartner analysts stated. “Before an activity is automated and self-service is implemented, the process associated with the IT service needs to be completely rethought and optimized. This may require new skills and a different culture to what is currently available within certain IT organizations.” Gartner Vice President and Analyst Dave Russell suggested examining all solutions making up an organization’s current infrastructure and figure out which component of the infrastructure will benefit the organization the most from being virtualized. Starting with the most mission critical components and planning to adapt the rest of the infrastructure over time is the best way to approach SDDC. Entities that are struggling with their storage infrastructure can look into virtualizing their storage tools to get the most out of their hardware and gain more control. SDS solutions are currently available for deployment in the healthcare industry but the healthcare industry tends to hesitate when adopting new technology, particularly virtualization technology. A report released by ZK Research earlier this year attributed evolving IT infrastructure technology as one of the major reasons why healthcare organizations have been slower to adopt software-defined solutions. “Historically, hospitals and other healthcare institutions have been slow to adopt new technology, as maintaining the status quo was viewed as safer than risking disruption from new technologies,” the report stated. As the amount of healthcare data being produced continues to grow, healthcare organizations will need to consider different ways of approaching storage. Storage solutions that allow rapid expansion and flexibility need to be considered to accommodate large and complex data files. Virtualizing is a good technique for organizations to get the most out of their IT infrastructure tools.

https://hitinfrastructure.com/news/how-virtualization-supports-healthcare-data-storage-needs

How Dell EMC’s modern infrastructure is helping CIOs in IT mutation

"Today IT transformation is the foremost requirement for every business growth. The legacy PSUs like HPCLs and BPCLs of the world are parallelly running modern infrastructure services with their in-house software to implant a new edge technology. Hence, IT transformation becomes a revolutionary step before acquiring digital mutation in any vertical. Before getting into the digital transformation journey, businesses need to secure their IT operations. Modern infrastructure is thus required to evangelize their data center for a better and secure IT environment.", Niladri Saha, GM- Modern Infrastructure, @Dell EMC India embarked. With businesses aggressively embracing the digital transformation, it is becoming important for them to stay competitive and ahead of changing customer expectations. CIOs play an important role and it is essential for them to adopt the technology systems and processes that will transform their internal operations, to meet the demands of fast moving businesses. This requires building agile infrastructures. “As the business drives new digital initiatives, IT must transform to accommodate massive growth in modernizing data centers, maintain the performance and reliability of legacy business applications, deploy a new breed of storage strategy and support increasingly complex workflows” Saha added. Further Saha discussed points that CIOs must keep in mind before initiating the modernizing their data centers:

1. High costs to operate: As companies expand into new markets, simultaneously they also gain or build data centers along the way. Each data center operated with its own set of practices and on its own hardware. Managing across these disparate systems and inconsistent processes is not at all cost-effective.

2. Aging technology: Enterprises have continued to operate using traditional data centers that weren’t up to modern standards — utilization and virtualization rates were low, automation was non-existent, etc. Over the time, this practice has not only contributed to high operating costs, which will not lead to many inefficiencies, making it nearly impossible for IT to meet the basic demands of the business.

3. High risk due to lack of redundancy: The organization’s fast growth and lack of standardization have always led to a gap in disaster recovery protection. Many applications — including key business systems — had zero redundancy. Hence, to reduce the redundancies, firms need to quickly modernize their operations as this risk to the business is too great to ignore.

4. Time lag in modernization: There is a huge time cost which is involved while migrating towards the new-age data centers. Without the right partner, an organization will easily dedicate twice as much time than it usually will take.

5. Resource cost avoidance: Alternative of choosing the right partner is running the migration project in-house. This would require bringing in contractors, experts and IT admins, which will involve an exorbitant cost. Hence, conducting the project on its own will not only lead to significant resource requirement but there are greater chances that the project may get extended.

In a modus operandi of migrating legacy data centers to modern technology, CIOs prefer not to scale out their old servers. "In such deployment, SDS helps in consolidating all the servers which brings out storage piece from a heterogeneous state and get a merger solution for old servers. And that’s how software defined storage helps organizations to accommodate new betel technology" he added. Software-defined storage data centers (SDDC) will lay a better foundation of storage infrastructure equipping the business with tools to analyse this data for better business plans and improved consumer deliverables, eventually increasing the scale of the business. Not only this, SDDC will also prove to be a game changer for the businesses by introducing them to the idea of innovation. With the rising consumers’ demands, data is bound to grow exponentially, making it impossible for businesses to provide real-time solutions with manual workforce/processes. "Therefore, businesses need to switch from manual to automated workforce/processes to reduce cost and optimize operations which will eventually drive growth. Software Defined Storage Data Centres will act as a catalyst in this transition as businesses will be able to transfer as well as streamline their processes on digital platform, thereby increasing efficiency"he further explains. Not only this, automation will improve communication, reduce human errors, enabling businesses to provide effective instant solutions to the consumers’ demands

https://cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/strategy-and-management/how-dell-emcs-modern-infrastructure-is-helping-cios-in-it-mutation/62289621

VMware to focus on its multi-cloud management platform in 2018

Our Advisory Board members look back on VMware's progress in 2017 and offer predictions for the company's future in cloud, networking and security

VMware proved in 2017 that it has come a long way from its virtualization roots. After a few false starts, it seems to have finally found its niche in the cloud market, thanks in no small part to the company's advantageous partnership with Amazon Web Services. All signs point to continued growth and development in this direction as VMware works to become a multi-cloud management platform.

VMware proved in 2017 that it has come a long way from its virtualization roots. After a few false starts, it seems to have finally found its niche in the cloud market, thanks in no small part to the company's advantageous partnership with Amazon Web Services. All signs point to continued growth and development in this direction as VMware works to become a multi-cloud management platform.

It was also a memorable year for VMware networking with the release of both NSX-T for non-vSphere environments and NSX as a service. Based on these developments, it's becoming increasingly clear that NSX will play a pivotal role in VMware's product portfolio in the future, and that it could even become, as VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger claimed at VMworld 2017, "the next vSphere."

SearchVMware asked its Advisory Board members for their thoughts on VMware's year and what could be in the cards for VMware in 2018.

Stuart Burns, virtualization and Linux expert

Overall, this has been a very good year for VMware -- even better than expected, in my opinion. On the surface, there's a lot of new stuff happening, including a new NSX-T launch and feature additions to VMware Cloud on AWS.

NSX is the jewel in the crown of the VMware arsenal because, so far as I'm aware, no other company has anything remotely similar, and it provides all the functionality a security and network administrator could desire.

VMware's partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the subsequent release of VMware Cloud on AWS made for the biggest news of the year. VMware Cloud on AWS -- which is finally generally available -- is a VMware cloud on AWS hardware. VMware manages all the customer-facing items.

Although VMware Cloud on AWS is a good product, in my opinion, it's still a bit more expensive than it ought to be. That said, I suspect the price will come down over time.

VMware resellers have come up with their own take on VMware in the cloud, but instead use two compute nodes and Network File System storage, which reduces the entrance cost into the cloud. This method requires a minimum of three nodes due to the vSAN requirement of VMware Cloud on AWS.

From a business perspective, VMware has played its hand well and is forging strategic partnerships to suit its interests. It is VMware's hope that these relationships will help it become the glue that enables cloud mobility, a bold but interesting idea. Despite the naysayers, many customers have actually increased their VMware estates over the past year.

The big focus for VMware in 2018 and beyond is to develop a consistent multi-cloud management platform. Medium and large companies are adopting hybrid cloud as their default setup at a growing rate, and they are using multiple platforms to manage their environments. This is a problem because using different platforms to manage multi-cloud environments is a waste of time and resources, and it leaves a cloud systems administrator with more platforms to learn and potentially troubleshoot.

Another major area of focus -- one that has been relatively quiet in virtualization news for whatever reason -- is automation. Automation tools, such as vRealize Automation, provide a bridge between relatively simple deployments, which any systems administrator can do, and a full-on portal experience.

Although automation requires significant upfront investment, it streamlines the deployment process while maintaining simplicity and convenience for the end user. In additional to developing a multi-cloud management platform, I suspect that this is another area in which VMware will continue to grow in 2018.

Brian Kirsch, IT architect and consultant, Milwaukee Area Technical College

VMware's in a state of change as the software-defined data center (SDDC) gives way to the cloud. The lines that define where applications live have never been less clear. Just as server hardware companies have had to restructure their offerings, so must VMware.

Over the past few years, @VMware has embraced technologies outside of its core virtualization stack. #NSX was a huge shift for VMware, and it has become a massive profit engine for the virtualization company. While the cloud market is already full of established players, VMware is working to expand into cloud management and security, and will continue to do so in 2018. 

http://searchvmware.techtarget.com/feature/VMware-to-focus-on-its-multi-cloud-management-platform-in-2018

Avi Networks Brings Elastic Application Delivery to VMware Cloud on AWS

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#Avi Networks, the leader in next-generation elastic application delivery services, today announced that the @Avi #VantagePlatform is natively available to customers of #VMware Cloud™ on #AWS. Launched today with immediate availability, Avi for @VMware Cloud on @AWS brings together VMware’s enterprise-class #softwaredefined data center ( #SDDC ) software and dedicated, elastic, bare-metal infrastructure from AWS to give organizations a consistent operating model and application mobility for private and public cloud. Avi Vantage delivers one-click load balancer provisioning, simplified troubleshooting, consistent multi-cloud architecture, and cost savings of more than 50 percent to customers of VMware Cloud on AWS. “VMware Cloud on AWS provides customers a seamlessly integrated hybrid cloud offering that gives customers the SDDC experience from the leader in private cloud, running on the leading public cloud provider, AWS” Enterprises are adopting cloud infrastructure as a natural extension to their data centers to quickly add capacity, perform on-demand scaling, and reduce costs. Unlike hardware appliance load balancers that are manual, inelastic, and resource-intensive, Avi Networks provides an elastic load balancer with centralized control, integrated visibility, and built-in automation that autoscales with applications across any environment. The platform provides a consistent set of services – elastic load balancing (L4-L7), global server load balancing, DNS services, traffic encryption and security, and real-time application performance analytics – across both on-premises data centers and cloud. These services help businesses meet their digital transformation goals by enabling agility, improving end-user experience, and reducing costs. “Avi Networks is excited to partner with VMware to offer elastic load balancing services for customers adopting VMware Cloud for AWS,” said Guru Chahal, vice president, products, at Avi Networks. “The partnership enables our joint customers to take advantage of consistent application delivery architecture both on-premises or in the cloud. The solution is helping enterprises accelerate cloud adoption and become more agile.” VMware Cloud on AWS technology partners enable customers to deploy the same proven solutions seamlessly, in both the public and private cloud. VMware simplifies the certification and deployment of partners’ solutions by eliminating the need for partners to refactor solutions for VMware Cloud on AWS. If a partner solution works on-premises in a VMware vSphere® environment, it will also work in VMware Cloud on AWS. VMware technology partners complement and enhance native VMware Cloud on AWS services capabilities and enable customers to realize new capabilities. “VMware Cloud on AWS provides customers a seamlessly integrated hybrid cloud offering that gives customers the SDDC experience from the leader in private cloud, running on the leading public cloud provider, AWS,” said Mark Lohmeyer, vice president and general manager, Cloud Platform Business Unit, VMware. “Solutions such as Avi Vantage Platform enable IT teams to reduce cost, increase efficiency, and create operational consistency across cloud environments. We’re excited to work with partners such as Avi Networks to enhance native VMware Cloud on AWS capabilities and empower customers with flexibility and choice in solutions that can drive business value.” About VMware Cloud on AWS Delivered, sold, and supported by VMware as an on-demand service, and running on dedicated, elastic, bare-metal AWS infrastructure, VMware Cloud on AWS is powered by VMware Cloud Foundation™, the unified SDDC platform that integrates vSphere, VMware vSAN™, and VMware NSX® virtualization technologies. With the same architecture and operational experience on-premises and in the cloud, IT teams can quickly derive business value from use of the AWS and VMware hybrid cloud experience. For more information on the VMware Cloud on AWS partner ecosystem, visit: http://cloud.vmware.com About Avi Networks Avi Networks completes enterprises’ digital transformation with modern application services delivered by its Smart Load Balancer, iWAF, and Elastic Service Mesh. The Avi Vantage Platform delivers elastic, software-defined application services on commodity x86 servers, VMs, containers, or public cloud. The platform provides application services as a dynamic pool of resources that match application needs in private or public clouds. Global 2000 enterprises in technology, financial services, media, telecom, and retail use Avi Networks to accelerate application delivery, enable self-service for application owners, improve end-user experience, and reduce their TCO by over 50%. Learn more at www.avinetworks.com or @avinetworks

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171128005605/en/Avi-Networks-Brings-Elastic-Application-Delivery-VMware

Worldwide Software Defined Data Center Market 2021 Overview- Opportunities, Impact of Drivers, Key Venders, Types, Applications, Forecast 2017-2021

Software Defined Data Center Market report aims to provide opportunities, information on market size, shares and growth factors which help decision makers take sound investment estimation. Global market report also identifies and analyses the emerging trends along with major drivers, challenges and opportunities in Software Defined Data Center industry with analysis on vendors, geographical regions, types, applications. Software Defined Data Center market is projected to display growth at CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 20.17% during 2017 – 2021 Software Defined Data Center market by Top Vendors: – @Cisco Systems, @Citrix Systems, @DellTechnologies , @Hewlett Packard Enterprise, @Pluribus Networks, @6WIND, @Arista Networks, @Avaya, @BigSwitch Networks, @Brocade Communications Systems, @Ciena, @DataCore, and many more. Get Sample PDF of report @ https://www.absolutereports.com/enquiry/request-sample/10672446 Software Defined Data Center Market by Dynamics: – Market driver Elimination of vendor lock-in issues. For a full, detailed list, view our report Market challenge Configuring legacy infrastructure. For a full, detailed list, view our report Market trend Emergence of software-defined WAN (SD-WAN). For a full, detailed list, view our report Geographical Regions: – APAC, Europe, North America, ROW Browse Detailed TOC, Tables, Figures, Charts and Companies Mentioned in Software Defined Data Center Market @ https://www.absolutereports.com/global-software-defined-data-center-market-2017-2021-10672446 TOC of Software Defined Data Center Market Report Covered: Opportunity in the market Market research methodology Market landscape Growth rate by 2021 Market segmentation by type, application Geographical segmentation Market drivers Market challenges Market trends Software Defined Data Center Market Vendors landscape Strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors List of Exhibits

http://www.satprnews.com/2017/10/28/worldwide-software-defined-data-center-market-2021-overview-opportunities-impact-of-drivers-key-venders-types-applications-forecast-2017-2021/

Global Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) Market 2017- VMware, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Dell, EMC2, IBM

Global #SoftwareDefinedDataCenter ( #SDDC ) Market 2017 Survival Strategies explore Economic Impact in Global Industries Manufactures, Growth, Size, Share, Trends, Development Challenges and Opportunities till 2022  Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) A Research study on “ Global Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) Market 2017-2022 ” represent the market share and size of Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) in international Industry. MRS Research Group added latest market research report by QY Research. Research Report provides an essential information and statistically evaluated data about the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC). The research report provides a detailed study of the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) market, enlightening the major areas such as future market scenario, market growth factors, market growth restraints, and others. The advanced technological trends and various new opportunities are also provided in this research report. Detail Information of Research Report @ http://www.mrsresearchgroup.com/report/93274#report-details Report Focuses on Some Important Manufacturers in Global Market Includes : #VMware, #Microsoft, #CiscoSystems, #DellEMC , #IBM, #DataCore, #HitachiDataSystems, #NetApp, #Pivot3, #SwiftStack, #HP, #Coraid, #BigSwitch Networks, #Citrix, #Plexxi, #NEC, Pertino Report Covers by Some Importatnt Regions/Countries as Following : United States, EU, Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia The research report provides the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) market’s classification in detail. The Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) market is bifurcated into a number of segments on the basis of materials,types,applications,and end-users. The geographical analysis of the global Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) market is also coveredin the report. The vital information mentioned in the research report helps in significantly predicting the future scope of the global market.
http://www.worldofwallstreet.us/global-software-defined-data-center-sddc-market-2017-vmware-microsoft-cisco-systems-dell-emc2-ibm/11807

Fujitsu Drives SDDC With Hyperconverged PrimeFlex

#Fujitsu Integrated System #PrimeFlex for #VMwareCloudFoundation — on show next week at #VMworld in Barcelona — is designed to dramatically simplify how companies buy, implement, and operate large-scale #SDDC s. Customers can choose either a turnkey integrated system, or a reference architecture. Turnkey systems allow customers to get Infrastructure-as-a-Service ( #IaaS ) up and running in just hours, based on familiar #VMware software. The reference architecture approach allows the use of pre-qualified and pre-certified #vSAN Ready Nodes for VMware Cloud Foundation deployments. With its two solutions for creating a hyper-converged environment, PrimeFlex gives customers an even wider choice in creating scalable, efficient, and agile on premise VMware Cloud Foundation software-defined infrastructure deployments that can be tuned to individual requirements. The guiding principle of PrimeFlex for VMware Cloud Foundation is to provide customers with an easy-to-operate, pre-configured solution that includes everything required for a hyper-converged SDDC infrastructure. The latest addition to the Fujitsu PrimeFlex line-up is ideal for enterprises and service providers that need fast production, easy maintenance, and lower total cost of ownership. It combines a high-performance Fujitsu server platform with switches from Cisco and QCT, and features VMware software-defined compute, storage and networking capabilities as well as the integrated management of physical and virtual resources. Craig Parker, head of integrated systems for the EMEIA region at Fujitsu, says: “Business units are continuing to expect more from their IT departments — mainly in responding faster and in a more flexible way to support fast-changing business needs, while of course still managing risk and cost. More and more enterprises are finding that software-defined design is the answer, since it streamlines infrastructures and increases flexibility and agility. However, it is a daunting challenge to build such a software-defined environment — and can be a difficult, time-consuming and error-prone process. PrimeFlex for VMware Cloud Foundation is the result of close collaboration between Fujitsu and VMware to create a solution that takes the risk and complexity out of SDDC deployments, while also dramatically cutting the time it takes to set up and operate such an infrastructure.” Fujitsu PRIMERGY servers underpin PrimeFlex for VMware Cloud Foundation. Designed for virtualization and optimized for VMware software, these servers are part of Fujitsu’s tried and tested x86 portfolio, which has led industry benchmarks for virtualization for half a decade. Currently, the Fujitsu x86 portfolio leads 16 of 21 VMmark 2.0x benchmarks, which are recognized as a true indicator of performance in virtualisation platforms. Fujitsu PrimeFlex for VMware Cloud Foundation is available immediately directly from Fujitsu or as part of the Select Channel partner portfolio. As the first VMware technology partner to offer VMware Cloud Foundation to the channel, Fujitsu is giving its Select Partner Program members a head start in terms of initiating new software-defined, hyper-converged storage projects for their customers. The new channel offering is backed by extensive training via the Fujitsu Select Academy, where channel partners receive the same advanced product and pre-sales training as Fujitsu employees. This training enables channel partners to specify and deploy PrimeFlex for VMware Cloud Foundation with confidence for customers, and also represents a step towards certification as Select Expert in Integrated Systems – a newly-created curriculum. PrimeFlex for VMware Cloud Foundation pricing varies according to the system specification, and local markets.

http://it-online.co.za/2017/09/08/fujitsu-drives-sddc-with-hyperconverged-primeflex/

Solarflare XtremeScale NICs Accelerate Performance of NGINX Application Delivery

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NGINX USER CONFERENCE — #Solarflare, a pioneer in the development of #softwaredefinedNICs, today announced its ability to boost the performance of #NGINX, the world’s most popular open source application delivery platform for high traffic sites, powering over 300 million properties. Test results show that servers with standard XtremeScale™ NICs, deliver 60% higher NGINX connection rates, 35% more container throughput, 50% lower latency--all while eliminating system jitter. For NGINX service providers, that means more application delivery with less server capital. Solarflare will be demonstrating NGINX performance testing in the Solarflare booth at the NGINX User Conference. “Application delivery is a killer app for our software defined NICs because the network stack in the Linux kernel is so often a bottleneck. Implementing XtremeScale NICs dramatically increases the efficiency of application delivery servers by reducing the number of CPUs needed to handle large volumes of packets.” Tweet this "Service providers require their application delivery solution to offer the highest performance and efficiency to provide the best possible experience to their users," said Paul Oh, Head of Business Development at NGINX. "By utilizing Solarflare NICs with NGINX Plus, customers can benefit by enabling the same amount of packet processing to be done with far less cores and servers." According to Ahmet Houssein, vice president of marketing at Solarflare, “Application delivery is a killer app for our software defined NICs because the network stack in the Linux kernel is so often a bottleneck. Implementing XtremeScale NICs dramatically increases the efficiency of application delivery servers by reducing the number of CPUs needed to handle large volumes of packets.” The Business Benefit of Application Delivery with XtremeScale NICs It’s simple. XtremeScale Fabrics allows IT organizations to deploy fewer NGNIX servers. NGNIX performance testing by Solarflare indicates most competitive 10Gb NIC implementations require about six cores to achieve 80% wire-rate. In contrast, a Solarflare XtremeScale NIC achieves 90% wire-rate performance utilizing only two cores. In this test case, two thirds less servers are needed for the same amount of work. The Trend Towards Software Defined NICs High frequency trading, web servers and load balancers are at the top of the performance pyramid because they handle millions of packets per second and need ultra-high bandwidth and ultra-low latency network connections. Looking forward, big data analytics is emerging fast as a foundation for a broad range of business applications. This massive new market is driving a pervasive need for high performance networks, and a corresponding trend towards NIC fabrics for granular, packet-level traffic engineering. One problem these applications face is the networking stack inside every Linux distribution has a limit on how many packets per second it can manage. When the limit is reached, CPUs become busy receiving packets, packets are dropped, and applications are starved of CPU. In response, companies like Solarflare have pioneered a form of software defined networking where fabric services are placed alongside other applications in “user space” to bypass the kernel, while network engineers can access and control the kernel bypass application for each server through well defined APIs.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170907005914/en/Solarflare-XtremeScale-NICs-Accelerate-Performance-NGINX-Application

Hitachi debuts Unified Compute Platform RS series to boost customers’ hybrid cloud initiatives

#HitachiDataSystems ( #HDS ), a wholly owned subsidiary of #HitachiLtd. announced this week its #UnifiedComputePlatform ( #UCP ) RS series, a fully integrated, software-defined data center ( #SDDC) rack-scale platform, powered by #VMware #CloudFoundation. Hitachi UCP RS enables customers to embrace hybrid cloud for faster time to market and pay-as-you-go economics. It also gives customers the freedom to optimize their IT investments by leveraging private and public cloud as an agile extension to their business. UCP RS provides flexibility to customers to either deploy integrated SDDC stack or build their own using Hitachi’s vSAN ready node and VMware software. The UCP family of converged, hyper converged and rack-scale systems provides enterprise, departmental and cloud service provider environments with a simple path to IT modernization and digital transformation. UCP solutions enable IT organizations to accelerate time to production, automate operations and reduce administrative costs by providing pre-validated, pretested and factory-built converged and hyper converged infrastructure systems.

http://wwpi.com/2017/08/25/hitachi-debuts-unified-compute-platform-rs-series-to-boost-customers-hybrid-cloud-initiatives/

Exciting lineup of VMware Cloud on AWS sessions at VMworld 2017

#VMworld is right around the corner and we have an exciting line up of #VMwareCloud on #AWS sessions! #VMware Cloud on AWS will bring VMware’s enterprise class #SoftwareDefinedDataCenter technologies to AWS, with seamless access to the broad portfolio of AWS offerings and is scheduled to be available in summer 2017. VMware Cloud on AWS is built from industry-leading VMware vSphere®, VMware vSANTM and VMware #NSX®, and is operated as a service. This service seamlessly integrates with existing customer datacenters already running on vSphere. Further, vSphere runs on elastic, bare-metal AWS infrastructure and the familiar vCenter Server management environment eliminates retraining staff that would normally be required to benefit from the public cloud. With the schedule builder going live, we have compiled a list of VMware Cloud on AWS sessions featuring well known speakers from VMware and AWS including Frank Denneman, Paul Bockelman, Brian Graf, Emad Younis, Wen Yu, Principal Engineers Robert Bosch, Chris Wagner and many more! Refer to the US content catalog and EU content catalog and start building your schedule now! Sessions: IDTitle Breakouts and Panel Discussions US: LHC3159SU EU: LHC1403BEAccelerate the Hybrid Cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS US: LHC1547BU EU: LHC1547BECreating Your VMware Cloud on AWS Data Center: VMware Cloud on AWS Fundamentals US: LHC2971BUManaging Your Hybrid Cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS US: LHC3371BUS EU: LHC3371BESVMware Cloud on AWS – The Painless Path to Hybrid Cloud US: LHC3174BU EU: LHC3174BEVMware Cloud on AWS: An Architectural and Operational Deep Dive US: LHC2281BUIntriguing Integrations with VMware Cloud on AWS, EC2 and More US: LHC3376BUS EU: LHC3376BESAWS Native Services Integration with VMware Cloud on AWS: Technical Deep Dive US: LHC1910BUUsing vRealize with VMware Cloud on AWS US: LHC1882BU EU: LHC1882BEService Overview for VMware Cloud on AWS US: LHC2103BUNSX and VMware Cloud on AWS: Deep Dive US: LHC3375BUS EU: LHC3375BESVMware Cloud on AWS Hybrid Cloud Architectural Deep Dive: Networking and Storage Best Practices US: LHC1755BU EU: LHC1755BEVMware Cloud for AWS Storage and Availability: Keeping Your Bits Safe for Humanity US: LHC1748BUVMware Cloud for AWS and the Art of Software-Defined Data Centers: API, CLI, and PowerShell US: LHC2105BU EU: LHC2105BENSX and VMware Cloud on AWS: The Path to Hybrid Cloud US: LHC3016PU EU: LHC3016PEVMware Cloud on AWS: A View of the World from Our Customers US: LHC3178BU EU: LHC3178BEOperating a Hybrid Environment with Hybrid Linked Mode and Content Library US: LHC3175BUVMware Cloud on AWS Partner Solutions Showcase US: LHC2386BUTrue Costs Savings – Modeling and Costing A Migration to VMware Cloud on AWS US: LHC1158BUArchitecture and Tooling for the Brownfield Hybrid Cloud US: SER2283BU EU: SER2283BEMigrate to Cloud Securely While Optimizing Copy Data: vMotion Has You Covered US: STO1890BU EU: STO1890BEVMware Cloud on AWS: Storage Deep Dive US: STO3194BU EU: STO3194BEProtecting Virtual Machines in VMware Cloud on AWS Group Discussions US: LHC3177GUSecuring Workloads on VMware Cloud on AWS US: LHC3176GU EU: LHC3176GEVMware Cloud on AWS Ready: Preparing Your Environment for the Best VMware Cloud on AWS Experience! Quick Talks US: LHC2403QUBusiness Value of VMware Cloud on AWS US: LHC3173QUVMware Cloud on AWS ISV Tech Program HOL US: ELW188701U EU: ELW188701EVMware Cloud on AWS Expert Led Workshop

https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2017/07/vmcsessions-vmworld2017.html

Announcing Availability of VxRail by VMware and Dell EMC Through VMware vCloud® Air™ Network Program

Together, with #DellEMC, we’re excited to announce the availability of #VxRail – the industry’s broadest #HCI Appliance portfolio – through the #VMware #vCloud® Air™ Network program. This exclusive partnership brings to market the ultimate appliance delivering virtualization, compute, storage, and data protection in an agile, scalable, easy to manage #SDDC building block. Luckily for existing customers, VxRail has deep integration with #VMware virtualization – VMware #vSAN is integrated at the kernel level and managed with vSphere. Ready for the best part yet, Service Providers? You can receive the VMware software titles on a monthly usage basis through the VMware vCloud® Air™ Network program.

https://blogs.vmware.com/vcloud/2017/06/announcing-availability-of-vxrail-by-vmware-and-dell-emc-through-vmware-vcloud-air-network-program.html

Broadcom aka Avago aka LSI announces SAS SATA NVMe Adapters with RAID

In case you missed it, #Broadcom formerly known as #Avago who bought the #LSI adapter and RAID card business announced shipping new SAS, SATA and #NVMe devices. While SAS and SATA are well established continuing to be deployed for both HDD as well as flash SSD, NVMe continues to evolve with a bright future. Likewise, while there is a focus on software-defined storage ( #SDS ), software defined data centers ( #SDDC ) and software defined data infrastructures ( #SDDI ) along with advanced parity RAID including erasure codes, object storage among other technologies, there is still a need for adapter cards including traditional RAID. Keep in mind that while probably not meeting the definition of some software-defined aficionados, the many different variations, permutations along with derivatives of RAID from mirror and replication to basic parity to advanced erasure codes (some based on Reed Solomon aka RAID 2) rely on software. Granted, some of that software is run on regular primary server processors, some on packaged in silicon via ASICs or FPGAs, or System on Chips (SOC), RAID on Chip (RoC) as well as BIOS, firmware, drivers as well as management tools.

http://news.sys-con.com/node/4071560

The VMware Perspective on Software-Defined Storage

Software defined datacentres ( #SDDC ) have shown the promise to change how we think about delivering IT services: from static, inflexible and inefficient –to dynamic, agile and optimized. For many, software–defined storage ( #SDS ) can be the most interesting component of the proposition: storage is responsible for the lion’s share of IT spend, growing constantly yet historically resistant to structural change. In this white paper, we present the core ideas behind software–defined storage, and introduce the #VMware model. We additionally take a look at key technology trends, and offer our perspective on likely adoption models, industry implications as well as customer impacts.

http://www.techrepublic.com/resource-library/whitepapers/the-vmware-perspective-on-software-defined-storage/