Realities and Risks of Software-Defined Everything (SDx) John P. Morency Research Vice President
Key Issues 1. SDx Today s Reality 2. SDx Risks and How to Avoid Them 1 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Cloud Disruption is Growing. Forecasted Cloud IaaS Spending Increase 2016 $114B 2020 $216B Source: Market Insight: Cloud Shift The Transition of IT Spending From Traditional Systems to Cloud (G00301664) 2 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Cloud Disruption is Driving IT Infrastructure Modernization Continuous Application Delivery Optimization The Journey Continues Composable Fabric-Based Infrastructure (micro services) Virtualization Reduction/Simplification Hyperconverged SW-Based Infrastructure (SDx) Blade consolidation Stateful Mode 1 Opex Optimization Hybrid IT 2010 2014 Continuous Economic Optimization 2018 and Beyond 3 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Software-Defined Everything (SDx): Infrastructure Modernization Enabler? Infrastructure orchestration for supporting IoT DevOps Cloud services Enables automated, agile and programmable infrastructure Two key variants Data center centric (Systems of Record) SDDC SDN SDS Infrastructure-as-Code (Systems of Differentiation, Systems of Innovation)) SDI 4 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
The Bigger Picture: Enabling Infrastructure and Application Ecosystem(s) Application Ecosystem(s) Infrastructure Ecosystem(s) Mode 2 Mode 1 Above Infrastructure/Application Ecosystem(s) (Above) Request/release resources Self-service workload templates Containerized compute and storage Hybrid cloud integration & management Open API access and plug-ins Developer portal User portal Domain and zoning Continuous application delivery Continuous economic optimization Usage-based pricing and chargeback Platform as a service Release management Compute pool(s) Compute pool(s) Infrastructure Foundation(s) (Below) 5 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Storage pool(s) Infrastructure Foundation(s) Below Auto discovery Template creation and deployment Provisioning Compose Aggregate and compose Compute/storage/network performance System and power management Security Performance and health monitoring Capacity management and prediction Replication, deduplication, HA File distribution and metadata Block, file, object store, placement, tiering Backup and recovery
Software-Defined Anything (SDx): A Technology Maturity View expectations Software-Defined Perimeter Container Management Software-Defined Compute IoT Edge Architecture IoT Platform Hyperscale Computing Micro Operating Systems Edge Computing Composable Infrastructure Serverless Infrastructure OS Containers Management SDS Dynamic Optimization Technology IoT Business Solutions Immutable Infrastructure Data Center Interconnect Fabric Workload Security Control Isolation Innovation Trigger Open-Source Cloud Infrastructure Framework Private IaaS Virtual Machine Backup and Recovery Peak of Inflated Expectations Plateau will be reached in: Internet of Things Machine Learning Software-Defined Security In-Memory Computing Software-Defined Data Center Software-Defined Infrastructure Infrastructure SDS Server Software Appliance Software-Defined Anything (SDx) Server-Side Client Graphics Software-Defined Networking Private Cloud Computing Trough of Disillusionment V2P Server Management Long-Distance Live VM Migration time Introspection Open-Source Virtualization Platforms Virtualization Software Licensing High-Assurance Hypervisors Slope of Enlightenment less than 2 years 2 to 5 years 5 to 10 years more than 10 years Shared OS Virtualization (Nonmainframe) IT Infrastructure Utility Virtual Desktop Infrastructure DMZ Virtualization Virtualization As of July 2016 Plateau of Productivity obsolete before plateau Source: "Hype Cycle for Infrastructure Strategies, 2016," (G00305999) 6 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Gartner Client Software-Defined Inquiry Distribution by Vertical Industry #1: #2: #3: Base: n = 511, Gartner Client Inquiry Data May 1, 2016 through April 25, 2017 7 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. #2:
Most Common SDx Use Cases and Benefits Rapid Provisioning Reduced Opex Improved IT support agility Improved Security Through Microsegmentation Improved operations recovery & continuity Centralized Policy Enforcement Software-Defined Centralized Configuration and Visibility Automated, Programmatic and Orchestrated Changes Increased Applications Services Availability Integrated Network Services; Network Policy Follows Workload Basic Transport via Merchant/Commodity Hardware Sources: "How to Make a Path to SDN Success," G00290968; Deploying Hyperconverged Integrated Systems: Eight Great Use Cases G00317042 8 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Software-Defined Technology Benefits Gartner Client Experience Improved IT Operations Resilience Reduced Data Center Capex Reduced Data Center Opex Sustainable IT Service Levels Improved IT Operations Security Increased Production Data Protection and Confidentiality Public Cloud IaaS (n = 61) Private Cloud IaaS (n = 73) 1 3 3 Software-Defined Data Centers (n = 20) 3 2 3 1 3 Software-Defined Storage (n = 31) 2 2 3 2 2 Software-Defined Networking (n = 26) 1 1 1 Hyperconverged Appliances (n = 32) 1 2 Most Measured Least Measured 9 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Source: 2016 Gartner Research Circle SDDC Survey
Key Issues 1. SDx Today s Reality 2. SDx Risks and How to Avoid Them 10 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Bottom up SDx management fragments control planes Siloed Bottom up Approach Optimizes each domain and control plane, driven by:- SDDC Datacenter SDI Infrastructure SDDC Datacenter Strong SDI components Compute Networking Storage Little leverage across domains SDN network SDS storage Little leverage across SDI and SDDC Strong Mode 1 only - not Mode 2, with separate monitoring of facilities, sensors and external devices SDF Facilities SDC servers SDD Devices SDM Machines 11 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Does SDx re-virtualize lock in? Hypervisor VM/Tools Lock-In Software-Defined Data Center IaaS OpenStack Service/ Maintenance Lock-In Virtual Data Centers Software-Defined Networking Software- Defined Anything (SDx) Open Compute Project Real-Time Infrastructure Hardware Lock-In Software-Defined Storage Integrated Systems Fabric-Based Computing 12 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
How to Minimize SDx Lock-In Your life cycle or schedule, not a vendors': Tactically set payback within 3-year asset cycles. It is OK to extend depreciated assets, if they still have a business value. Do not plan on extended 3-5-7 years' total cost of ownership (TCO) as they move to legacy lock-in. Set a control plane - master that - then choose the rest: Hold one technology, optimize the rest. Top-down, not bottom-up. Look for SDx and integratable infrastructure, not just optimized appliance for stacks or function on integrated infrastructure. 2017-2020 Control Integrate Clarify the role of reference architectures, they are great blueprints but not between multiple vendors, Blueprints/RA Lock in can only be shifted or focused, but not totally eliminated. 13 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Strategic Planning Assumption By 2023, the programmatic capabilities of SDI will be considered a requirement for nearly 85% of Global 2000 enterprises, up from 25% today. Key Drivers: SDDC and SDI capabilities nest down into SDN, SDS and SDC components. As well as adapters and machines Standards develop between vendors and technologies Driven by alternate technologies like containers frameworks alongside hypervisors Application operations management orchestration between production data centers and public clouds broadens and matures 14 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Recommendations Much hype surrounds SDx but it is inevitable and cannot be ignored. IT organizations must understand the abstraction of software (with lock-in) from standardized hardware. Consolidate infrastructure for cost savings and improve both SLA delivery and agility, integrating virtualization, SDx and cloud management to deliver hybrid IT Do not consider Software-defined anything (SDx) as an IT stand-alone project but an enabler to software-defined infrastructure, data center, storage, security, networking, virtualization and sourcing. Drive Top-Down SDI or SDDC initiatives, be cautious of SDN, SDC and SDS silos Consider a SDx or technology only when the project and technology are driven by a business need! 15 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Recommended Gartner Research Should Your Enterprise Deploy a Software-Defined Infrastucture? Dave Russell, Donna Scott (G00316477) Market Trends: Hyperconverged Integrated Systems (HCIS) Hardware Not (Always) Included Kiyomi Yamada, John P Morency (326985) Survey Analysis: Software-Defined Data Center and Hyperconverged Adoption John P Morency and Scot MacLellan (G00314068) Hype Cycle for Infrastructure Strategies, 2016 Philip Dawson, Nathan Hill ( G00305999)) IT Market Clock for Bimodal Compute Platforms, 2016 Andrew Butler, Philip Dawson, Chirag Dekate (G00299252) 16 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. For more information, stop by Gartner Research Zone.