The software-defined data center goes mainstream

The software-defined data center is gaining widespread adoption across a range of industries according to a new report.

The survey of 500 industry executives by security controls specialist HyTrust finds that many areas of operation including mission critical systems are now moving to a virtualized delivery model.

"Without much fanfare, this critical technology advance has become woven into the basic fabric of businesses large and small," says Eric Chiu, president of HyTrust. "The potential of virtualization and the cloud was always undeniable, but there was genuine concern over security and skepticism regarding the processes required. What we find in this research is that the challenges are being overcome, and every kind of function in every kind of industry is being migrated. There are some holdouts, to be sure, but they're now the exception, and we’re betting they won’t stay that way for long".

Among the biggest concerns about migrating are data security and breaches. And infrastructure wide control -- both named by 60 percent of respondents -- and effective monitoring and visibility, cited by 55 percent.

It's clear that growth in virtualization is ongoing too, high percentages of business have plans to move more workloads to the public cloud in the next year. These include 82 percent of financial services, banking and insurance businesses, 81 percent of information research and analysis firms, 77 percent of healthcare, biotech and pharma companies.

There's much more information on the results of the study on the HyTrust website and you can see a summary of the key findings in infographic form below.

Image credit: fbmadeira/Shutterstock