SDDC versus HDDC

We have covered SDDCs to a certain depth. We can now summarize the key differences between a physical data center and a virtual one. To highlight the differences, we're assuming in this comparison that the physical data center is zero-percent virtualized and the virtual data center is 100-percent virtualized. For the virtual data center, we're assuming you have also adjusted your operation method, because operating a virtual data center with a physical operation mindset results in a lot of frustration and suboptimal virtualization. This means that your processes and organizational chart have been adapted to a virtual data center.

Data Center

The following table compares the key properties of HDDCs and SDDCs. As Disaster Recovery across the data center is the litmus test that defines whether your data center is an HDDC or SDDC, we have included the DR properties as well.

Compute

The following table compares the compute element of HDDCs versus SDDCs:

Storage

The following table compares storage in HDDCs and SDDCs:

Network

The following table compares networks in HDDCs and SDDCs:

Application

The application is at the heart of an SDDC. It is a common mistake to think of an SDDC as a platform. Since an SDDC lends itself to IaaS, there is often the tendency to build it without considering the applications. Different groups of applications can benefit from a different SDDC architecture. Examples are:

• End-user computing
• Mission-critical applications
• Cloud-native applications
• General-purpose, platform 2 applications

Each of these applications has different infrastructure requirements. You could certainly build the same SDDC for all of them, but you will not optimize your cost. For each of the applications, think of the areas shown by the following diagram:

Besides these considerations, there are the following differences between HDDCs and SDDCs: