Pride and Prejudice in Data Centers About Software

When it comes to data centers, most people will first think of a huge building with many computer rooms, rows of racks, and various equipment on the racks. From time to time, you can hear the rumbling noise of equipment running. Yes, the data center is the computer room in the past. Since the advent of computers and networks, computer rooms have appeared. After decades of development and popularization, its image has long been deeply rooted in people's minds. As early as the 1980s and 1990s, standards for computer room design and construction appeared, which were used as references for the construction of data rooms and later data centers. Even though some new things have emerged in data centers in recent years, such as cloud computing, virtualization, software definition, big data, etc., which have continuously changed people's understanding of traditional data centers, this deeply rooted image has not changed fundamentally for a while.

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Whether it is cloud computing, software-defined computing, or virtualization, the most important thing these new technologies bring to data centers is software. In fact, it is normal to think about it. Google, which formally expounded the concept of cloud computing, and VMware, which proposed virtualization, are both software giants. Companies with software backgrounds have strong software development capabilities, and their own development cannot be separated from data centers. Therefore, it is a matter of great benefit to change data centers through their own software advantages, so as to get a share of the huge data center market. Therefore, these software companies are working hard to promote their own software strategies and occupy the data center market with software. In recent years, the role of software in data centers has been continuously magnified, and software companies have launched a fierce attack on data centers. Even some traditional data center hardware giants have to put down their posture and launch a number of data center software solutions to give data centers more choices. But then again, the data center market seems to be not very receptive in recent years. On the purchase list of data centers, various hardware equipment such as servers, networks, storage, cables, etc. are still the bulk of the expenses, and software expenses are still very small. Although data centers often talk about "cloud", the inherent arrogance and prejudice of data centers towards software has not changed fundamentally. They still display visible things such as how many servers they have and how much computing power they can provide. Software things are often difficult to quantify, unlike hardware equipment, which is easy to quantify when piled up in the computer room and shocking to people. This prejudice has not changed for the time being.

Software is indeed a good thing. It can fully realize many functions that hardware cannot realize. It is much more flexible than hardware. Even servers and network devices must have their own software programs to operate. The fundamental purpose of introducing software in data centers is to centrally manage all the hardware resources of the data center through software and change the current situation of low efficiency of data center management. But what is the reality? Often data centers usually have too high and unrealistic expectations for the implementation of software. Different data centers have their own actual complex situations, involving many aspects. If they are not well combined with software, software often cannot effectively play its advantages. This makes the money invested in software by data centers not see the effect. It is better to buy servers and improve computing performance, which is an easy-to-see effect. There are also many data centers that believe that as long as software is introduced, the cost of operation will be greatly reduced. This is also a misunderstanding. Software can indeed replace manual automatic monitoring and management work, but someone still needs to input some necessary learning parameters into the software. If the infrastructure of some data centers is not well built, it will also affect the effect of software execution. This makes many data centers still have to maintain two groups of manpower to do operation and maintenance work, one group of manpower to maintain hardware equipment, and one group of manpower to manage software, which makes the investment even greater. If the software and data center infrastructure are not well integrated, misoperation is more likely to occur. The use of software requires more professional technical accumulation, and many data centers that dared to take the lead in introducing software in the early days have also retreated due to the difficulties.

Originally, data centers have always been dominated by hardware, and they were very disdainful of the role of software. Under the persuasion of many new software technologies, after the introduction of software, many data centers that did not taste the sweetness quickly gave up, which made the arrogance and prejudice of data centers towards software have not changed fundamentally. Even now, not only data center software companies, but also hardware equipment companies have mentioned the importance of software, and software still occupies a small share in data centers. Many data center solutions include software. Software is sold as part of the solution and packaged with hardware equipment. Not many data centers use software that is sold separately. The software part of the solution often makes the solution more flexible and controllable, and increases the data center's imagination of future business. Data centers are still unwilling to pay high fees for software alone. Software, as an additional gift, can only exist as part of the solution, commonly known as bundled sales.

Data centers are born with arrogance and prejudice against software, and this is also related to the immaturity of the software itself. When cloud computing emerged, cloud computing companies sprang up like mushrooms after a rain. The quality of software services provided to data centers was uneven, there were no relevant implementation standards, and the depth of understanding of data centers was also different, which brought a lot of confusion to data centers. However, every new technology must be continuously improved and technically precipitated, not to mention software technology that can bring changes to data centers, which data centers should give more opportunities to try. Hardware technology has been developing unchanged for decades, and it is time to change. Needless to say, the role that software can bring to data centers is self-programming infrastructure that can be dynamically configured and reconfigured according to changing application requirements, which can achieve less manual work and save a lot of costs, a unified platform that can be optimized for the entire data center structure, and can flexibly support any or all workloads. No one can deny the changes that software can bring to data centers. Data centers should get rid of their arrogance towards software, give software more opportunities, and actively use software to transform data centers. Today, these new software technologies are indeed extremely innovative and can bring many functions that cannot be achieved by traditional hardware devices. If used properly, they can greatly unleash productivity. We must eliminate the data center's prejudice against software and give software more opportunities for trial and error.