“This is interesting—didn’t we see this same thing in the logs just before we crashed last time?” – an anonymous and somewhat embarrassed DevOps team member
Unfortunately the “same thing” is an obscure, otherwise uninteresting log entry, in a directory structure that’s rarely checked. More unfortunate is that the “last time” was two months ago, when their eCommerce site went down on Black Friday costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they had noticed this same entry but just now made the correlation. Companies have made great strides in attempting to speed up correlations like this and improve MTTR. The question that always arises (usually not long after the CFO sees the price tag) goes something like, “Is it really worth deploying an agent to all of our key app servers with the sole purpose of gathering and merging disconnected artifacts (logs) with the hope of finding an interesting correlation when it counts?”

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Analyst house Gartner argues the software defined data centre (SDCC), otherwise known as the virtual data centre (VDC), is not the right choice for every IT organisation today – but long term it will be crucial to the evolution of an agile digital business.

The SDDC is whereby IT infrastructure is virtualised and delivered ‘as a service’, leading to greater levels of automation, flexibility and, in turn, business agility. The development is seen as crucial by the analyst house in moving forward with DevOps and hybrid cloud deployments.

Gartner argues the majority of orgnaisations are not ready to begin adoption and should ‘proceed with caution’ – but by 2020, the programmatic capabilities of an SDDC will be required for three quarters of Global 2000 Enterprises that seek to deliver a DevOps and hybrid cloud approach.

“Infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders can’t just buy a ready-made SDDC from a vendor,” said Dave Russell, Gartner VP and distinguished analyst. “Due to its current immaturity, the SDDC is most appropriate for visionary organisations with advanced expertise in I&O engineering and architecture.”

Organisations considering a SDDC need to consider two steps; understand why they need it for the business, and then with integration, it will more than likely come from different vendors. Different organisations have different cultures, and Russell argues this also needs to be assessed. “A broken process is still a broken process no matter how well it is automated,” he said.

“Build the right skills in your organisation by enabling top infrastructure architects to experiment with public cloud infrastructure in small projects, as well [as] giving them the opportunity to get out and learn what their peers in other organisations and visionaries in this field are doing.”

Certain components of SDDC, such as software defined networking (SDN) and storage, are still relatively immature, Gartner argues. It is a view with which this publication agrees; last month Andrea Knoblauch wrote: “The jury is still out when it comes to whether widespread adoption is ready for mainstream.

“It’s yet to be seen what the true benefits of software defined networks will be, but the ability to adapt the network to different loads, be able to prioritise traffic or reroute, and of course the ability to see a better overall picture, is enough for many organisations to start investigating this new methodology.”

Do you agree with the Gartner analysis? Let us know in the comments…

SYS-CON Events announced today that Alert Logic, the leading provider of Security-as-a-Service solutions for the cloud, has been named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 17th International Cloud Expo® and DevOps Summit 2015 Silicon Valley, which will take place November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Alert Logic provides Security-as-a-Service for on-premises, cloud, and hybrid IT infrastructures, delivering deep security insight and continuous protection for customers at a lower cost than traditional security solutions.

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We talk about optimization a whole lot. There’s cloud workload optimization, there’s mobile optimization for website presentation and there’s every other type of optimization as we move through the ‘full stack’ of information technology from the base logic layer all the way up to the Graphical User Interface (GUI).
You get the picture, there’s a lot of optimization going on – but this is a natural thing, i.e., we spent the end part of the last century trying to get more processing speed, better form factors for devices and cheaper memory and storage.

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SYS-CON Events announced today that MobiDev, a software development company, will exhibit at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
MobiDev is a software development company with representative offices in Atlanta (US), Sheffield (UK) and Würzburg (Germany); and development centers in Ukraine. Since 2009 it has grown from a small group of passionate engineers and business managers to a full-scale mobile software company with over 150 developers, designers, quality assurance engineers, project managers in house, specializing in the world-class mobile and web development.

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I love all this digital hullaballoo, really I do. I love all these different trends and disruptions and turmoil. I especially love the confusion – it gives me something to write about.

But sometimes, I’ve just had enough. Especially when the digital disruption story starts repeating itself.

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SYS-CON Events announced today that HPM Networks will exhibit at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
For 20 years, HPM Networks has been integrating technology solutions that solve complex business challenges. HPM Networks has designed solutions for both SMB and enterprise customers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

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