A virtual data center is a more cost-effective, flexible, and practical alternative to an on-prem data center. Instead of relying on physical hardware, a virtual data center allows a company to use cloud-based resources and create a scalable infrastructure that aligns perfectly with operational needs.
This article is an introduction to virtual data centers and the benefits of cloud-based infrastructure. Learn how to take advantage of this strategy and capitalize on the flexibility, scalability, and cost savings of cloud computing.
What is a Virtual Data Center?
A virtual data center (VDC) is a set of cloud resources that support a business with computing capabilities. A VDC eliminates the need for a company to set up and run an on-prem data center. Another common name for a VDC is a software-defined data center.
A software-based data center offers the same capabilities as its physical counterpart. It allows a business to set up:
- Servers.
- Storage clusters (RAM and disk space).
- Processing power (CPU).
- Networking components and bandwidth.
Like a regular data center, a VDC provides computing capabilities that enable workloads of business apps and activities, such as:
- File sharing.
- Productivity apps.
- Email operations.
- CRM and ERP platforms.
- Big data.
- Database operations.
- AIOps and machine learning.
- Communication and collaboration apps.
The main upside of virtual data centers is the ability to add or remove capacity without having to set up or take down hardware. Every abstracted component runs on the provider’s virtual machine (VM), and the client pays for the usage on a pay-as-you-use basis.
Virtualization of physical components offers a lot of advantages, and companies opt to deploy a VDC in pursuit of:
- Flexible and scalable infrastructure.
- Shorter time-to-market and idea-to-cash cycles.
- High availability.
- Cost reductions (no rental, power, cooling, maintenance, or hardware costs).
- Higher levels of IT setup customization.
Our team can help you set up a virtual private data center without high upfront costs or prolonged waiting periods.
Traditional Data Center VS. Virtual Data Center
The table below highlights the main differences between on-prem and virtual data centers.
| Point of comparison | Traditional data center | Virtual data center |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A facility that houses computer hardware and provides computing capabilities. | A pool of cloud resources that uses virtualization to provide computing capabilities. |
| Costs | A high upfront cost as companies need to buy hardware and rent space. High electricity, cooling, and maintenance costs. | A cost-effective pay-as-you-use payment model. No initial investment necessary. |
| Main investment type | Capital expenditure (CapEx) refers to the process by which companies acquire and maintain physical assets. | Operating expenses (OpEx) are the costs the company pays for ongoing operations only. |
| Setup speed | Designing and building a data center can take months. Each new piece of hardware requires purchasing, configuring, and racking. | Building a new VDC is typically a matter of days. Adding new VMs and capabilities requires minutes. |
| Hardware dedication | The data center owner makes full use of CPU, memory, storage, and network resources. | A single machine can host multiple VMs, so clients can see performance issues if the vendor’s device has too many tenants. |
| Servers | The team deploys physical servers with fixed CPUs, memory, and storage. Limited upgrade options and time-consuming server management. | The team deploys resizable virtual servers that keep up with current workload demands. |
| Networking gear | The team must plan for and set up switches, ports, routers, and cabling. | Relies on software-defined networks (SDN) and virtual routers to scale network capacity up or down. |
| Security considerations | Data center security begins with entry restrictions and verifiable access to server racks. The in-house team is in charge of IT-level security, too. | The team focuses on IT-level security, while the provider takes care of physical protection. Most vendors offer services for IT security as well. |
| Security centralization | Hard to implement and manage centralized security. | Has centralized security and management. |
| Staff requirements | Companies need trained personnel to rack and stack equipment. Most companies have separate compute, storage, and network teams. | As little as two or three people can manage a VDC, but staff members require strong expertise. |
| Data center migration | Migration is a slow and expensive project. | Migrating a VDC is quick, simple, and cheap. |
| Workload migration | Difficult to move the workload from one hardware to another. | Easy workload migration between hardware platforms. |
| Scalability | Relatively static and predictable, and typically goes one way (adding more equipment). | Dynamic provisioning enables teams to scale the number of VMs up and down with speed and ease. |
| Power consumption | A traditional data center is a large consumer of power. | Users do not cover power expenses. |
| Maintenance complexity | Many repetitive tasks and coordination work, but not a lot of necessary expertise. | Less repetitive tasks, but the team requires deep expertise. |
| Backups | Requires backup agents that the team must deploy, patch, and manage. | The hypervisor provides LAN-free and agentless backup services. |
| Server anti-virus management | Each server needs a separate anti-virus program. | Anti-virus operates at the hypervisor level. |
| Firewalls | Firewalls are centrally located and typically not part of the server. | A built-in property of the VM. |
| Disaster recovery | DR occurs on a per-application basis, and every app has a different solution. | DR is a service and enables center-wide strategies. |
| Future planning | Requires accurate estimation of future needs to avoid unnecessary overhead. | The company pays only for the needed capacity and can scale up and down to meet the current requirements. No overhead. |
Our comparison of bare metal and virtualization weighs the two popular options and helps you make the right choice for your business.
Benefits of a Virtual Data Center
Below are the main benefits of virtual data centers and the reasons why opting for virtualization may make more sense than investing in a physical IT setup.
Flexibility and Scalability
Cloud resources make a VDC highly flexible. Adding and removing virtual components is simple, cheap, and quick, traits that an on-prem data center cannot provide. These features speed up:
- Release cycles.
- Project turnaround.
- Time-to-market for new products and services.
Meanwhile, developers can enjoy greater agility with a VDC. The team can:
- Deploy from public and private catalogs of VM templates.
- Build and take VMs down quickly and easily.
- Create and use virtual applications (vApps).
The near-zero deployment time and flexible VMs increase overall operational efficiency. These traits are vital for modern development companies, especially those relying on a DevOps team.
Our article about DevOps and virtualization explains the value of VMs and on-demand provisioning in DevOps teams.
Fast Resource Provisioning
With an on-prem data center, provisioning a new piece of hardware can take weeks. The company must purchase, wait for delivery, configure, and install each new component.
A VDC, however, allows a team to deploy new components in minutes. IT admins can quickly set up virtual servers and desktops either from:
- A pre-configured image.
- A master template.
- A clone of an existing VM.
Speedy and on-demand provisioning make VDCs a natural fit with Agile and DevOps practices. Most companies with a virtual data center allow teams to use policy-based configurations, thereby speeding up the software development life cycle (SDLC).
Cost-Saving Opportunities
An on-site data center requires vast upfront and continuing investments, including:
- Building, equipping, and maintaining the facility.
- Acquiring the necessary hardware.
- Hiring and training teams to manage the data center.
- Setting up standby components in case demand or traffic increases.
A virtual data center is a far cheaper alternative, as a company can save money by:
- Removing the need to set up and equip a facility.
- Lowering the number of necessary technicians.
- Eliminating the costs of hardware purchase and maintenance.
- Eliminating electricity expenses.
The pay-per-use model of a VDC also eliminates overhead. A company only pays for resources the team is using, and each virtual component consumes optimal capacity. There is no need for standby capacity as teams can adjust to growing demands in minutes. Also, from a business planning perspective, costs become far more predictable with a VDC.
Simplified Management
If you run a virtual data center, the cloud provider is responsible for maintaining the infrastructure stack. Your in-house team only administrates the VMs, a process that occurs remotely, quickly, and in real-time.
Clients typically manage a virtual data center from a single pane of glass. Centralized tools and interfaces provide complete visibility into computing resources, enabling admins to optimize usage.
From a management perspective, a virtual data center is a natural fit with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies. You can install a virtual desktop on a personal device in minutes, thereby speeding up the employee onboarding process.
Lack of Downtime
A VDC helps avoid downtime thanks to the fact that:
- Top-tier cloud providers ensure high availability, typically in the 99.999% range (an average of about 6 minutes of downtime per year).
- A data recovery occurs in a matter of minutes.
When a company relies on a physical server and the equipment runs into a problem, the redeployment time depends on several factors:
- Do you have a backup server ready?
- Is there an image of the server?
- Is the data on the backup server up to date?
In a VDC setting, redeployments occur quickly due to virtual machine snapshots. You can easily and quickly move VM snapshots from one server to another and redeploy them.
A virtual data center also helps stop downtime by limiting human errors. Over 75 percent of network downtime is a result of an employee mistake. As a VDC eliminates manual tasks, the team can rely on automation and orchestration that are less prone to downtime-causing errors.
Our cloud backup and restore services enable SMBs and enterprises alike to protect bare-metal and virtual server data.
Business Agility
When your IT foundation is too static to evolve or scale, a business is not able to quickly:
- Respond to new market opportunities.
- Adapt to changing user demands.
- Keep up with aggressive competitors.
A virtual data center enables companies to quickly adapt to different settings and requirements. You can drive business operations forward through:
- On-demand resource provisioning.
- The ability to test new business models quickly and without risk.
- Improving the performance of legacy apps.
Virtual data centers are also compatible with existing physical networks and setups. Businesses have several options when working with a VDC, including:
- Shifting the entire IT infrastructure to the cloud.
- Creating a hybrid solution that mixes the use of physical and virtual components.
- Making virtual resources available only for emergencies and spikes in usage.
Companies can also set up VDC environments on all cloud deployment models: public, private, multi-cloud, hybrid, and community cloud.
Read about the key factors when choosing a cloud service provider and learn how to find a partner that meets all your requirements.
Simpler Security
Overall, managing security in a VDC is simpler than protecting a traditional data center. You do not need to worry about physical security.
As far as IT-level security goes, companies with a VDC can set up distinct security policies for different use cases, approaches, and protection requirements. An innovative and strategic cloud security policy can also help ensure VDC-related tasks do not place valuable data and apps at risk.
Most providers support clients with a range of cybersecurity services. A typical vendor offers disaster recovery and business continuity services that enable you to maximize the benefits of VM snapshots.
Virtual Data Centers and Cloud Computing
A virtual data center falls under the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) delivery model of cloud computing. IaaS enables a company to request physical components and form a data center with:
- Server racks.
- Networking equipment.
- Storage hardware.
- Software and hardware backups.
In addition, most IaaS providers typically offer services such as:
- Performance monitoring.
- Firewall management.
- Network security.
- Data redundancy services.
While enterprises can benefit from IaaS, SMBs stand to gain the most from this cloud computing model. A relatively small organization can establish an IT infrastructure without incurring significant costs to build an on-prem data center.
IaaS is a common starting point for cloud adoption, as most companies typically begin with this model before moving on to more sophisticated PaaS offerings.
Know the difference between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, the three most common cloud computing offerings.
Reap the Benefits of VDCs and Flexible Cloud-Based Infrastructure
A virtual data center is a popular choice for companies regardless of where they are on their cloud adoption journey. Whether you need to decommission hardware urgently or are planning a strategic move to new IT cost models, a VDC is an excellent way to start benefiting from cloud-based resources.
