What is a Data Center?

Physical data centers are limited by space and their reliance on hardware and equipment. Now, servers can be virtualized, where processing power and memory are separated from the hardware in a virtual machine. With data center virtualization, administrators can create a virtual data center infrastructure using remote servers to share the workload and storage. A virtual data center requires less equipment, less power, and less room than a traditional physical data center. A virtual data center can also access or “burst into” either a public or private cloud when more storage or processing resources are required. Virtual data centers are also known as software-defined data centers because all of the services they provide, including networking and storage, are delivered through software rather than hardware.

Cloud service providers can provide virtualized data centers as a service, taking over the management and delivery of a company’s core operations, networking, and storage. These providers share virtual networks, storage, and servers among several different companies, shifting storage space and workload processing among servers as needed. An organization can also use part of its own infrastructure to create a private cloud for the same purpose or use a combination of private and public clouds, which is known as a hybrid cloud environment. A virtual data center can co-exist with an existing physical data center, running in parallel, or businesses may use modern data center equipment to run a fully virtual data center. A hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) integrates compute, storage, and networking equipment with virtualization software and optimizes it to run as a single system. With an HCI, all of the data center functions run on software that is closely integrated with the hardware. This software-driven approach enables the automation of storage tasks and operations that previously required server hardware to be manually adjusted.