The idea of an Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) started a couple of years ago.
Giant Web 2.0 Cloud companies, such as Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google started deploying the concept of a cloud orchestration platform. This platform has a web interface where you can log in, create and kill virtual servers, spin them up, create a virtual private network between them, add a virtual firewall in between, and so on. This infrastructure is a dream for every enterprise who runs a data center. It is a highly integrated self-serviced platform with no dependency on hardware, and it can scale out.
The launch and growth of Amazon's AWS public cloud was the tipping point for enterprise IT. Everyone loved the new way of provisioning infrastructure from a web interface. (Although there were multiple public and private cloud launches prior to Amazon, Amazon AWS was one of the most successful and emerging cloud offerings.)
Enterprise IT wanted to build something similar to...