Nevermind the robot butlers, here’s the SDDC

When the world’s technology elite descend on the Moscone Center in San Francisco for VMworld next week, there will no doubt be great, deeply technical excitement about a number of industry developments. However, these guys aren’t too concerned if there’s going to be a hologram projector on the iPhone 9- they are even more forward thinking, and that seems to be confusing the rest of us somewhat.

A lot of the talk surrounding VMworld is about the Software Defined Data Centre, or SDDC. Now, the tech world does love an acronym so its shortening is inevitable, but what about its actuality? The SDDC doesn’t exist yet, but then again, most things that get the industry excited haven’t emerged yet either. I’m still waiting for my hoverboard.

The SDDC concept takes existing IT structures like networking, storage, CPU and security and virtualises them. This then makes it possible to deliver them as a measureable service, meaning all aspects of deployment and maintenance would be implemented through software updates rather than having to continually replace hardware. It’s a biggie, even if it’s a confusing one.

This conversation is likely to lead the way at VMworld, along with excited talk about the true possibilities of the mobile cloud. Because one day, surely, it’ll be for more than storing your entire Bon Jovi back catalogue (most of which deserves to be consigned to space anyway, so it’s a start).

All thought on the matter is forward thinking, but does point to a lot of evolution in modern computing being driven by software-defined everything. Joe Baguley, Europe CTO at VMware, organisers of VMworld, recently said that in the future, datacentres “will be populated by white boxes built by unknown companies. Hardware doesn’t matter anymore. You can build resilience and efficiency into the software layer. Hardware becomes irrelevant.” Might not be what the ‘known’ companies want to hear, but it points to a shift in power in the industry where smaller players can legitimately get a look in when it comes to the structure of networks. And a bit of community is always a plus, isn’t it?

But the thing is, sometimes events like VMworld are too forward thinking, and a tad too elitist about it to boot. Babel PR is an agency interested in the here and now, because that’s what we work with. We love hearing clients’ thoughts and ideas for the future but our main concern is promoting brands and companies whose products very much exist and are helping the industry towards its brighter, if distant, future.