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

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