Software-defined data center (SDDC) is the phrase used to refer to a data center where the whole infrastructure is virtualized and delivered as a service. Control of the data center is fully automated by software. Unlike traditional data centers hardware configuration is maintained through intelligent software systems. Software-defined data centers are considered by many to be the next step in the evolution of virtualization and cloud computing as it provides a solution to support both legacy enterprise applications and new cloud computing services.

Virtualization is the core of the software-defined data center. There are three core components of the software-defined data center, which are network virtualization, storage virtualization and server virtualization:

Network virtualization combines the available resources in a network by splitting up the available bandwidth into channels, each of which can be assigned to a particular server or device in real time.

Storage virtualization is the pooling of physical storage from multiple storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device.

Server virtualization is the partitioning of a physical server into smaller virtual servers to help maximize your server resources. In server virtualization the resources of the server itself are hidden or masked from users, and software is used to divide the physical server into multiple virtual environments, called virtual or private servers.

Software-defined data center applications allow for dynamic structuring of the infrastructure and IT resources.