Software-defined deluge: promises, pitfalls and players
It's not just networking that is becoming software defined.
By Staff Writers
on
May 13 2013, 8:28AM
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Software-Defined Whatever?
Ever since the term "software-defined networking," or SDN, moved from geek status to become a widely recognized trend via VMware's monster $1.2-billion acquisition of SDN startup Nicira, the IT industry has been assaulted with talk of software-defined storage, software-defined compute, software-defined data centers and, well, software-defined anything.
Yet for all the talk, software-defined is real. Software-defined refers to the abstraction of the functionality of some traditional data center hardware component such as a networking switch or storage array into software, adding some type of orchestration and automation, and making it available to applications via APIs -- either open source or proprietary -- to let those applications better control the functionality.
Turn the page to get a taste of the software-defined movement, starting with a look at what could happen to hardware vendors as well as a who's who in the industry.
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