Virtualized Storage (an important aspect of the Software-led datacenter movement) is already here. Companies are virtualizing their storage environments and saving significant time and money in doing so. While the evolution of the cloud might still be “up in the air” (pun intended, credit: John Furrier), the fact is it is happening. Cloud infrastructures and virtualized storage improve business agility and reduce infrastructure costs.

Sapphire Now is SAP’s annual event for partners and clients. SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE broadcasted live from the event this week. We learned a great deal about the latest trends in virtualization, and how these trends impact storage and datacenter architecture at large. Here is a recap of news from Sapphire Now that drives home this point:

CSC has layered EMC storage w/a software solution to help its clients identify their virtualization needs.

 
Converged infrastructure has accelerated both confusion and opportunity. The pressure is on companies to provide effective delivery and integration. CSC, a business solutions and services company, and EMC, IT business and services provider, have co-innovated a virtualized software-led storage environment. The partnership offers a de-duplication, archiving storage and software solution. It is a fully managed pay-as-you-go storage solution that automatically adjusts to changing business requirements. A trend in Big Data is the speed at which data is processed and analyzed, in near real-time.

As an example: a racecar with thousands of sensors on it is a microcosm of the business world, the enhanced possibilities and value are significant. SiliconANGLE’s Founder John Furrier suggests: “[Thinking of] the racecar as a business, we can measure everything. Imagine what you can do and what that will do to the value chains of the company.”

HANA Reduces Complexity in the Data Center

 
The data center is a complex place. The application landscape requires an infrastructure that can adapt to it. VCE is investing in applications and software-led storage with a new product category called, “specialized systems.” SAP HANA is a HANA appliance that’s designed and made for execution and support delivery of a single in-memory computing platform. The virtualization aspect of this move is absolutely applicable to the software-led storage. Demystifying Big Data as a buzz word, virtualized petabytes of storage allows for easier access to analyze that data along with reduced storage costs.

CIO’s beware, now is not the time to be scared of virtualization.

 
SAP and EMC are quick to give specifics on how SAP environments improve business agility, which fundamentally reduces the cost of infrastructure. A big angst of business CIO’s has been the time-to-change cost of moving data centers from on-premise to the cloud. Henrik Wagner of Global SAP Practice at EMC, is quoted as saying that, “SAP has reduced the risk and transition time of data center moves from 10-15 months to 6 months.”

Storage visualization can be broken down to, and rightfully so, time and financial savings. When users want to have a new system spun-up, they can have it within hours as opposed to days. Software-Led Storage allows for companies to react to business demands quicker, while translating to both economic and efficiency savings.

Practical savings on virtualizing with VMWare.

 
The amount of practical reasons to virtualize part of your IT are beginning to mount. By reducing the number of CPUs, SAP reduced its number of licences needed and thus enjoyed a significant reduction in its Oracle bundle cost. By virtualizing VMWare, SAP cut data center usage significantly and was able to become more green in the process. Virtualized storage lends itself to maximized available resources, which saves companies money on both the front-end (total costs) and back-end (business process efficiency).

The Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) is a market IDC projects will top $3.7 billion by 2016. Traditional storage is a $10 billion annual business, but until recently has been a slow market to move into virtualization. Software-Led Storage will continue to be a burgeoning part of the Software-Led Infrastructure of our Software-Led Data Center in a Software-Led World. Data is about action, and if Sapphire Now 2013 is any indication, SAP seems to be positioning itself to continue to make helpful and actionable software.