THE STATE OF THE

VIRTUALIZED DATA CENTER

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BUSINESS TRENDS

BUSINESS TRENDSAGILITY. It’s impossible to read an article in the trade press or attend a webinar without the word coming up. And thanks to the increased adoption of virtualization, IT leaders have gotten a taste of what it means to be agile.

Organizations today increasingly look to the data center network for competitive differentiation. It’s no longer just about speeds and feeds and big pipes. Virtualization has changed that equation. Case in point: The results of the 2013 Computerworld State of the Enterprise survey1 suggest that IT departments are becoming adept at linking even routine investments—like networking—to business objectives. When asked how impor-tant infrastructure technologies were to creating a competitive advantage for their companies, a majority of respondents rated data center-related technologies, including IT and network services management (57 percent) and virtualization (56 percent), as either very important or critical.

57% 56%

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That emphasis is showing up in investment plans for the network and data center. The 2012 Network World State of the Network study2 showed 34 percent of the respondents were ready to roll out or were planning to roll out, 17 percent were investigating what direction to take, and 30 percent were already fully deployed.

IT and network services management

Desktop/storage/ network virtualization

Virtualization

IMPORTANCE OF INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGIES TO

CREATING A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

FOR COMPANIES

NETWORK/DATA CENTER INITIATIVES New to us

Investigating what direction to take

Ready for rollout within next 12 months

Planning for rollout in next 1–3 years

Fully deployed

Not on our radar

30%

15%

16%

18%

17%

4%

These plans are being built on a proven track record for virtualization: Over the past decade, data center agility has dramatically increased with the virtualization of compute and storage resources. Applications have transitioned from client/server architectures—where each application was tied to a specific physical server—to virtualized architec-tures where software abstracts the application from the physical server, allowing the application to reside literally anywhere. Storage, meanwhile, has transitioned from phys-ical resources dedicated to specific applications or servers to shared pools.

But IT understands that the infrastructure is not as agile as it could be—or as it needs to be. While data center agility has greatly increased due to application, server and storage virtualization, the IT infrastructure is still not agile enough to meet business demands.

The problem is the network. Virtualization is dependent on the network, and the network is incredibly complex. So complex, in fact, that it brings resource provisioning to a standstill. It’s not just network virtualization that’s being held back; this holds true across all virtualization strate-gies. A 2013 survey conducted by Network World on behalf of Juniper Networks showed that at least half of IT leaders said network complexity is holding back virtualization for networks, storage, applications and servers.

This e-book looks at the virtualization trends uncovered in the survey conducted by Network World on behalf of Juniper Networks and offers advice for optimizing data center agility through network virtualization in a simple, open, smart manner.

1 Computerworld, 2013 State of the Enterprise Survey. http://marketing.computerworld.com/CW_State_of_Enterprise_2013.pdf 2 Network World 2012 State of the Network Study http://marketing.networkworld.com/pdf/NWW_StateoftheNetwork_2012.pdf

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Virtualization is dependent on the network, and the network is incredibly complex. At least half of IT leaders said network complexity is holding back virtualization for networks, storage, applications and servers.

SOURCE: 2013 SURVEY CONDUCTED BY NETWORK WORLD ON BEHALF OF JUNIPER NETWORKS

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CONCLUSIONIn an effort to achieve the level of agility that business demands, many IT organizations have virtualized their data center resources. With applications, servers and storage virtualized, IT is able to react more quickly to business needs. However, these virtualization efforts go only so far before network complexity brings efficiencies to a halt. To achieve greater levels of agility, IT must address the network.

That means simplifying the infrastructure and operations with virtualization. Juniper Networks MetaFabric™ Architecture—a simple, open and smart approach to data center design—accelerates the deployment and delivery of applications within and across multiple virtualized data centers. It provides location-independent coordination and management of devices across multiple sites, maximizing data center resources and ROI to allow you to establish a solid physical network foundation and address the security and BC/DR requirements needed for network virtualization success.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISITwww.juniper.net/datacenter