Security and performance required to support data center transformation, survey shows

A new Bitdefender survey reveals that security is best argument for enabling datacenters’ agility, efficiency and flexibility. Companies have started moving away from legacy hardware-centric systems and toward revolutionary technologies - such as software-defined data centers, hyperconverged infrastructures, and, hybrid cloud - while keeping data protection as a prime concern.

Data center transformation consists of: software-defined data center: a combination of software-defined compute (virtualization), networking (SDN), storage (SDS), and a common management layer. By relying on software, it delivers flexible, efficient and fast-iterating infrastructure, while running on commodity hardware, and reducing infrastructure capital expenditures. Hyperconverged infrastructure: it simplifies operations and management of data centers by converging the computing, storage and network compornents into a single, software-driven appliance. Hybrid cloud: a mix of public cloud services (company data stored off-premises on third-party infrastructures) and privately owned data centers (data stored on-premises).

Some 79% of CISOs say their data center is in undergoing a major data center transformation: 67.2% already store data on hybrid clouds, 64.8% use software-defined networking, 62.8% rely on virtualization for corporate data, 57.2% have enabled software-defined storage, while 35.6% have embraced hyperconverged infrastructure.

As the datacenter undergoes major transformation, CISOs say they need security solutions that ensure enterprises extract maximum value from software defined data centers, hyper converged infrastructures, and hybrid cloud. Bitdefender’s survey shows that protecting sensitive data is a key factor throughout the transformation process. According to the survey, the main driver of data center transformation is improved data protection, mentioned by 68.5% of the IT execs.

Bitdefender security specialists strongly advise CISOs to use a security solution specifically designed for the infrastructure it will run on (physical or virtual), instead of a single tool. Conventional endpoint security solutions - originally designed for hardware-defined, premise-based infrastructure - are unsuitable for the modern datacenter as they are inefficient to maintain and deploy, hardware-intensive and often ineffective against advanced targeted attacks.

The vast majority of IT execs say data center modernization will have a favorable influence on their company, bringing both business agility and lowering IT operating expenses: 39.2% of CISO say data center transformation will have a major positive impact, and 44.4% expect moderate positive impact.

The survey, conducted in May 2017 by Censuswide for Bitdefender, included 1,051 IT security purchase professionals from large enterprises with 1,000+ PCs and data centers, based in the US, the UK, France, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany.

View full results here.