THE STATE OF THE

VIRTUALIZED DATA CENTER

We asked more than 200 IT decision makers across numerous industries about their
progress with virtualization across their infrastructure.
REPORT FULL OR
PERVASIVE VIRTUALIZATION
AT THEIR ORGANIZATIONS
56%
THE BIG PICTURE
EFFICIENCIES IN THE DATA CENTER &
NETWORK CONTINUE
Organizations are continuing to try to reduce
costs, simplify, and improve efciencies.
While some initiatives show progress with full
deployment, there remain areas of opportunity.
CENTRALIZED APPLICATIONS IN
FEWER DATA CENTERS
34%
CONSOLIDATED SERVERS AND
MIGRATED TO VIRTUAL RESOURCES
46%
INCREASED THE EFFICIENCY OF
DATA CENTER STORAGE
26%
FLATTENED THE DATA CENTER
NETWORK TO ACCOMMODATE
MORE SERVER-TO-SERVER TRAFFIC
24%
Virtualization
OPTIMIZING THE ORGANIZATION TO
CAPITALIZE ON NEW IT INFRASTRUCTURE
72%
UP FROM 67% IN 2011
AND 64% IN 2010
Moving from
brittle tech computing silos
consisting of applications/compute/
storage to exible, network-based
utility computing/cloud services is
critical if IT is to enable corporate
agility
THESE ARE THE FACTORS DRIVING THEIR INVESTMENTS IN VIRTUALIZATION:
BUSINESS
CONTINUITY/
DISASTER
RECOVERY
63%
IMPROVING
APPLICATION
PERFORMANCE
AND AGILITY
57%
NATURAL
REFRESH CYCLE
45%
NEW SERVICES AND
APPLICATIONS
DEPLOYED
44%
NETWORK/DATA CENTER INITIATIVES
These
are IT
leaders
plans for
data
center network
investments
in virtualization
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Investigating what direction to take
CONVERGED I/O FABRIC
(CONSOLIDATING ALL
I/O TRAFFIC TO ONE
SHARED, VIRTUALIZED
CONNECTION)
39%
DESKTOP/STORAGE/
NETWORK
VIRTUALIZATION
51%
CONSOLIDATING
SERVERS AND
MIGRATING TO
VIRTUAL
RESOURCES
35%
VIRTUALIZATION
OF SYSTEMS
SUPPORTING TIER 1
APPS
41%
INVESTIGATING OR PLANNING
ROLLOUT IN NEXT 3 YEARS
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BUT COMPLEX NETWORKS ARE HOLDING
BACK VIRTUALIZATION IN THESE AREAS
STORAGE
VIRTUALIZATION 53%
VIRTUALIZING THE
NETWORK ITSELF 57%
APPLICATION
VIRTUALIZATION 53%
SERVER
VIRTUALIZATION 50%
TAKING ACTION
HAVE PLANS TO CHANGE
THE IT STRUCTURE TO
ACCELERATE VIRTUALIZA-
TION AND CLOUD
50%
NEARLY
3%
37%
20%
7%
OTHER
CREATING A
NEW IT TEAM
CONSOLIDATING/
MERGING IT
CREATING
OTHER NEW IT
NEARLY ALL RESPONDENTS REPORT
BUSINESS CONTINUITY/DISASTER
RECOVERY IS A CONSIDERATION WHEN
PLANNING NETWORK CHANGES OR
UPGRADES
ARE PLANNING TO MAKE
SIGNIFICANT OR MODERATE
CHANGES OR UPGRADES TO
THE NETWORK
56%
Aspects of business continuity/disaster
recovery taken into consideration when planning
network changes or upgrades:
NETWORK
AVAILABILITY
NETWORK
SECURITY
USER
CONNECTIVITY
85%
74%
64%
39%
36%
17%
MODERATE
CHANGES TO
SUPPORT
VIRTUALIZATION
MINIMAL
CHANGES
2%
PLANNING TO
VIRTUALIZE
THE ENTIRE
NETWORK
SIGNIFICANT
CHANGES
LEGACY
INFRASTRUCTURE
42%
WHATS IMPEDING BUSINESS
CONTINUITY AND DISASTER
RECOVERY?
NETWORK SECURITY IS AN UPFRONT
CONSIDERATION WHEN IMPLEMENTING
NEW NETWORK TECHNOLOGY
59%
WHAT ABOUT SECURITY?
BUT DONT LET
SECURITY GET IN
THE WAY
LEVEL OF IMPORTANCE WHEN EVALUATING NETWORK
SECURITY SOLUTIONS TO SUPPORT A VIRTUALIZED
ENVIRONMENT
SUPPORT NEW SERVICES AND
TECHNOLOGIES WITHOUT SACRIFICING
PERFORMANCE/END-USER EXPERIENCE
VIRTUALIZED SECURITY POLICY IS
CONSISTENT AND INTEGRATED WITH
PHYSICAL SECURITY POLICY
DETAILED REPORTING/LOGGING OF ACCESS
EVENTS AND TRAFFIC TO SUPPORT SLAs AND
COMPLIANCE REQUIREMENTS
FULL VISIBILITY AND ACCESS CONTROL OVER
ALL TRAFFIC FLOWING THROUGH VMs
CRITICAL VERY
IMPORTANT
SOMEWHAT
IMPORTANT
NOT VERY
IMPORTANT
NOT AT ALL
IMPORTANT
31%
26%
26%
19%
49%
48%
37%
44%
18%
24%
29%
35%
2%
2%
2%
1%
1%
6%
WHAT ABOUT SECURITY?
WE DON'T HAVE A
STRONG PREFER-
ENCE AND WILL
EVALUATE THE
SOLUTIONS THAT
MEET OUR NEEDS
WE PREFER
A FULL
SOLUTION
STACK
WE PREFER
BEST-OF-BREED
SOLUTIONS, NO
MATTER THE
VENDOR
Download
The Network World eGuide: The State of the Virtualized Data Center or go to:
www.juniper.net/datacenter
Sources:
IDC White Paper, sponsored by Juniper Networks, Agility and Performance in the Datacenter: Role of the Network in Application and IT Service Delivery, September 2013.
Live Webinar: Automate & Orchestrate The Network - Build Simple and Agile Data Centers, May 2013.
AVOIDING VENDOR LOCK-IN
MULTIPLE
FAILURE
POINTS
28%
SECURITY
GAPS
28%
41%
30%
29%
ARE OPEN TO BEST-OF-BREED
SOLUTIONS THAT BEST FIT
THEIR NEEDS
70%
VM
VM
VM