A virtual data center (VDC) is an abstraction that is not tangible and does not comprise physical IT infrastructure components that are designed for business needs of enterprises. Virtualization technologies allow a VDC to provide the same computing data storage, networking and data access capabilities of traditional IT infrastructure while simplifying costs, complexity and maintenance.
Virtualization facilitates faster provisioning of hardware and scaling on demand to accommodate the growth of businesses. It also supports agile software development practices and DevOps, making it a natural fit with modern IT architecture. It also reduces IT support and labor costs and allows companies to invest more in technology.
VDCs can be built on premises in the central physical location (private cloud) or hosted by a third-party that offers cloud solutions to multiple companies simultaneously (public cloud). Virtualization can help reduce operating and maintenance best site costs in both cases.
The hardware that is used to build and deploy a VDC can be purchased from a vendor or leased from an IT managed service provider. It’s often referred to as hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) because it combines storage, computing, and network equipment into a system that runs on a software platform and can scale up and down.
A VDC can run on various operating systems that include Linux, Windows, and VMware. It is able to be implemented in a hub-and spoke network with the core infrastructure being deployed in the hub as well as applications and workloads installed in spokes. This architecture is compatible with the structure of company roles and responsibilities, as well as providing reduced cost through component and data flow centralization. It also facilitates ease of management, operations and compliance.