By Don Clark
Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. save loads of
money running their websites by spurning brand-name server
computers in favor of inexpensive commodity-style systems. And the
trend is reaching other parts of data-center operations, aided by
new kinds of software.
In addition to commodity servers, technology vendors are
offering lower-price alternatives to specialized networking and
data-storage equipment. Backers say the software-defined data
center, as the trend is known, can deliver better performance as
well as lower costs for corporate customers.
Cheaper computing power has been key to the movement. Computer
makers like Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. long have based their
servers on Intel's x86 chips, originally used in PCs. But companies
looking to build huge server farms later used the same technology
without relying on big-name vendors. Google has famously built its
own servers; Facebook uses low-cost x86 servers from Asian vendors
like Quanta Inc.
The Web giants found ways to sidestep other brand-name gear, a
trend other companies have begun to emulate. Some customers turned
to software, developed at universities and refined by startups,
that lets x86-based computers control networks in place of
specialized gear from the likes of Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper
Networks Inc.
That shift required fewer costly switching systems, and for
those still needed, low-price alternatives emerged from Quanta and
others vendors of low-end servers. Providers of so-called
software-defined networking, or SDN, now include VMware Inc., the
Nuage Networks unit of Alcatel-Lucent SA, Cumulus Networks and Big
Switch Networks.
In data storage, startups like Formation Data Systems plan to
combine software and x86 chips in dedicated storage boxes that can
replace high-end gear from vendors like EMC Inc. and NetApp Inc.
Others, including Atlantis Computing and Nutanix, offer systems
that store data on disk drives or flash memory chips built into
individual x86 servers, the approach used by many Web
companies.
The software-defined versions of storage and networking gear
aren't yet widely deployed. But incumbents like Cisco and EMC are
already using their own software to respond to the changes, and
analysts expect more buying activity in 2015 as the trend creates
new billion-dollar businesses.
Write to Don Clark at don.clark@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires