THE STATE OF THE

VIRTUALIZED

DATA CENTER

Business trends and perspectives on

the deployment and implementation of

network virtualization technologies

TOPICS

2

Business Trends

Software-Defined Networking and Virtualization

Virtualization and Simplified Architecture

Business Continuity

Security

Management

1

2

3

4

5

6

3BUSINESS TRENDS

State of the Network Study conducted by Network World

in October 2012

Computerworlds 2013 State of the Enterprise Survey

State of the Network Study conducted by Network World in

October 2013 - commissioned by Juniper Networks

4BUSINESS TRENDS

Importance of infrastructure technologies for creating a competitive advantage

57% 56%

IT and network

services managementVirtualization

5BUSINESS TRENDS

34% of IT professionals are ready or planning to roll out desktop, storage

or network virtualization

4%

17%

18%

16%

30%

15%

New to us

Investigating

Ready to rollout

Planning to rollout in next 1-3 years

Fully deployed

Not on our radar

6BUSINESS TRENDS

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

SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKING AND

VIRTUALIZATION

7

More than half the respondents will evaluate software-defined networks (SDN)

within the next two years to help automate and simplify network operations

18%

16%

18%

52%

In the process of

evaluating

Will evaluate in the next

12 months

Will evaluate 12 24 months from now

SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKING AND

VIRTUALIZATION

8

Facilitates virtualized networks by abstracting lower-level functionality

Decouples the control plane from the data plane

Enables direct programmatic control of the network

Management and operation of the network is handled and automated in a centralized controller

Provides network admins more granular control

Network designers must consider entire infrastructure when creating workloads

Controller

SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKING AND

VIRTUALIZATION

9

Nearly half of respondents have or expect to run into skill gaps when deploying SDN

They also worry about lack of proven ROI

IT skill gaps

Unsure of ROI/ immature technology

Integrating with current technology

Staff resource constraints

Cultural barriers within IT

Business disruption/

downtime during transition

49%

48%

43%

39%

26%

24%

10

Benefits of implementing SDN

Increased network efficiency

Improved IT services delivery

Lower operating costs due to centralized network management

Reduced capital expenditures

Less dependence on proprietary hardware, dedicated appliances and application-specific devices

SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKING AND

VIRTUALIZATION

VIRTUALIZATION AND SIMPLIFIED ARCHITECTURE

11

Nearly 70% of organizations with more than 1,000 employees have plans to simplify the IT structure to accelerate virtualization and cloud

One in five are creating new IT teams to redesign the network

Consolidating/merging IT teams

Creating new team dedicated to

re-architecting network

Creating other new IT teams

Other

No changes planned to IT structure

37%

20%

7%

3%

51%

VIRTUALIZATION AND SIMPLIFIED ARCHITECTURE

12

More than half are planning to change or upgrade the network to increase

support for virtualization

Planning significant changes

Planning moderate changes

Planning to virtualize entire

network

Planning minimal changes

Dont know

17%

39%

2%

36%

6%

BUSINESS CONTINUITY

13

Network availability

Network security

Continuous data access

Data protection

User connectivity

Data replication

85%

74%

64%

61%

59%

52%

Nearly all respondents report that business

continuity and disaster

recovery (BC/DR) are

considered when

planning network

changes

Network availability, network security and

user connectivity are

top considerations

BUSINESS CONTINUITY

14

Legacy infrastructure is cited as the top challenge in improving BC/DR

Legacy infrastructure

Multiple failure points

Security gaps

No clear requirements

Inconsistent policies

42%

28%

28%

26%

23%Infrastructure sprawl

Manual backup and

configuration

Traffic not prioritized

27%

22%

19%

SECURITY

15

Majority of respondents report that network security is a primary

consideration

Upfront consideration

Mid implementation

Post-data center implementation

59%

28%

7%

SECURITY

16

Top considerations when evaluating network security solutions to support a

virtualized environment

Full visibility and access control

No performance sacrifice

Integrated virtual and physical security

Detailed reporting and logging

80%

74%

63%

63%

MANAGEMENT

17

Optimal network management requires a single interface that provides visibility into both the virtual and physical networks

Helps organizations identify the source of performance and other issues

Also provides a single interface to automate behavior across the entire network

SIMPLE, OPEN, SMART

18

Many IT organizations have virtualized their data center resources

But, to achieve even greater levels of agility and flexibility, they need to also virtualize the network

Juniper Networks MetaFabric architecture:

Enables simple, open and smart data centers

Accelerates the deployment and delivery of applications within and across multiple sites and clouds

Simple SmartOpen

Easy to

deploy & use

Save time,

improve performance

Maximize

flexibility

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Download the Network World eGuide:

The State of the Virtualized Data Center

Click Here