Burdened by the inescapable mandate to remain competitive, companies are investigating methods to advance in their digital transformation journey. While many organizations are working to modernize their IT infrastructure by embracing cloud models and services, adopting software-defined solutions helps companies evolve their on-premises technology environment by giving it cloud-like capabilities through software.
Software-defined solutions have immense potential for transforming the way organizations operate by virtualizing IT infrastructure to increase business agility and support automation.
Understanding Software-Defined Solutions
Software-defined solutions use software to abstract the control layer from the hardware layer, virtualizing parts of the IT infrastructure. With software-defined solutions, companies are less dependent on the underlying hardware, so they have more flexibility about what kind to use.
By reducing dependency on hardware, software-defined solutions decrease the cost of infrastructure and improve resource allocation, promoting operational efficiencies. Software-defined solutions can provision, manage, and monitor resources for data storage, compute, networking, and security.
Software-defined solutions include software-defined storage (SDS), software-defined networking (SDN), software-defined security (SDSec), and software-defined data center (SDDC).
Software-Defined Storage
Software-defined storage (SDS) separates storage capabilities from the underlying hardware, allowing data to be managed using a single pane of glass.
Software-Defined Networking
Software-defined networking (SDN) uses software-based controls to communicate with hardware, such as switches and routers, to manage traffic and increase availability.
Software-Defined Security
Software-defined security (SDSec) enhances network security by using software for access control, intrusion detection, and segmentation.
Software-Defined Data Center
Software-defined data center (SDDC) brings together other software-defined solutions to virtualize and automate storage, compute, networking, security, and data management.
Companies can start the journey to transforming their traditional infrastructure by adopting one of the software-defined solutions and adding more until they achieve an SDDC or a level of software-defined maturity that aligns with their strategic objectives.
Business Agility with Software-Defined Solutions
By abstracting the control layer from the hardware layer, software-defined solutions promote business agility by enabling companies to adapt quickly to changing business demands. For example, software-defined storage is highly scalable. Capacity can be increased without the need to go through the lengthy process of provisioning and implementing additional hardware.
The process for adapting the network using software-defined networking solutions can be automated. Instead of manually changing the network to reallocate resources, traffic can be rerouted automatically in real time to meet changing needs.
With software-defined security, policies can be set and implemented to standardize security measures across the business. Based on changes in the threat landscape and threat intelligence, company-wide security policies can be updated easily.
Software-defined solutions promote innovation and accelerate time-to-market by automating processes associated with application testing and development. Developers can build, test, and deploy applications using a single interface.
Optimizing Organizational Operations
Software-defined solutions streamline operational processes through automation. Policy-driven automation promotes data center efficiency by tiering data storage so that information is directed to the appropriate media based on level of use and desired accessibility.
Many infrastructure management processes that need to be conducted manually in traditional infrastructures can be automated with software-defined solutions, including scaling, setting security policies, balancing loads, and data tiering.
Software-defined solutions provide unified management for organizational operations through a single pane of glass. SDN provides greater visibility and control so network performance and security can be managed across the system all the way to the edge for more standardization of policies. Policies can also be modulated in real time as a response to changing conditions.
As a testament to the powerful operational capabilities of software-defined solutions, the U.S. Air Force has decided to adopt software-defined networking. According to the National Defense site, the Air Force is turning to SDN because it “offers the battle manager continuity of operations through denied, degraded, intermittent and latent network conditions.”
Expertise in Software-Defined Solutions
Moving to a new type of infrastructure can be daunting, but that shouldn’t keep your company from adopting software-defined solutions. Working with the right technology partner will give you peace of mind when undergoing such a major transformation.
At ProActive Solutions, we use our consultative approach to help your company find the right way to start creating a software-defined environment. We can help you test the validity and value of a software-defined solution by delivering a proof of concept (PoC), which your organization can use to measure and evaluate against your unique requirements for success.
ProActive offers a range of software-defined solutions as part of our Digital Transformation services. Our partnerships with leading technology companies allow us to create software-defined solutions that integrate multiple brands for the best results.
Find out which software-defined solutions are right for your company. Ask for a consultation from ProActive.
