There’s a revolution going on and it’s affecting the ways in which companies organize, store, and manage their data. The demand for data is putting pressure on companies that once struggled with anticipating and responding to customer demands and changing competitive pressures. Therefore, it’s a new age of the data center, one that plays a significant role in the way the network is built, maintained, and secured.

Companies continue to look to hybrid cloud models as a way to modernize infrastructure without losing legacy investments. The cloud is software-defined by nature, which turns traditional hardware infrastructure into large pools of computing and storage that must be used and decommissioned on-demand. As much as this seamless process can reduce cost, optimize the data center, and enable organizations to be more competitive, the idea that the data center can be completely software-defined is still not within arm’s reach.

In essence, the full potential of the cloud — whether private, public, or hybrid — has yet to be reached. Instead, companies continue to rely on network virtualization to control, manage, and secure resources that operate on-premise via the public or private cloud. Network virtualization provides the bridge companies need to fully leverage the scaling and flexibility benefits afforded through the hybrid cloud.

Let’s expand on that concept through an examination of stretching. With network virtualization, the organization gains the ability to stretch its network from inside the current data center to other data centers. With such an arrangement, the organization can enjoy the flexibility of moving application resources between public and private data centers. The end result is one large network used to run business processes across the public and private cloud. When this process is software-driven, the business is better equipped to manage security and automate application provisioning.

In addition to stretching the data center, companies can also leverage micro-segmentation via network virtualization. This process allows the business to assign specific security policies to any application. These same security policies can then be applied to the application as well as its components, regardless of whether they are deployed across public or private data centers. Micro-segmentation allows for security integration directly into the application so it is protected no matter where it travels within the data center.

As the data center continues to evolve and the software-defined approach to data management and security improves along with it, the opportunity is there to leverage more of the cloud in full form so that data truly becomes the center of all processes, knowledge, and competitive decisions. Until then, companies will continue to advance with the tools they have at the ready, including network virtualization.

At ACR Solutions, it’s our job to help you determine the solutions you need to best meet customer demand. You may be moving toward fully leveraging the cloud, but your data center may not be configured in a way that can easily support and manage the applications you need. We can help you figure this out, as well as other considerations related to the benefits of the cloud. Contact us today and we’ll determine how we can best help you.