Data center automation: 2 acronyms you should know

Data centers remain the brain and nerve center of today's enterprises. The fact that many companies are migrating to the cloud doesn't change that fact--it just changes the geography.

But what is changing is that today's data centers need to be more software-based and better automated in order to take advantage of business needs for agility, scalability, and digital transformation.

If you want to understand what's driving data center automation, here are the two acronyms to start with:

1. SDDC

The move toward the Software-Defined Data Center is using virtualization, containers, DevOps, and other advances to give IT a lot more flexibility and control over the backend systems that power the organization. Because software is some much faster and easier to adapt than hardware, this gives IT a lot more levels to pull.

2. DCIM

Data Center Infrastructure Management software provides insights on servers, building facilities, and operational status to help optimize for radical efficiency in utilization, energy use, connectivity, and other resources that were previously split across multiple departments. Better managing and automating these resources allows IT to focus on adding more value with SDDC.

Special report

To dive a lot deeper on this topic, see our special report "A Guide to Data Center Automation." You can read all of the articles on ZDNet or you can download them in one PDF on TechRepublic, available for free to registered users.

ZDNet's Monday Morning Opener

The Monday Morning Opener is our opening salvo for the week in tech. Since we run a global site, this editorial publishes on Monday at 8:00am AEST in Sydney, Australia, which is 6:00pm Eastern Time on Sunday in the US. It is written by a member of ZDNet's global editorial board, which is comprised of our lead editors across Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America.

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