IT is undergoing a fundamental transformation. The tools and services that were deployed in years gone by are no longer proving suitable for existing business needs, not to mention the needs of tomorrow. Expected IT outcomes are changing while at the same time budgets are under continued pressure while demands from the business increase at exponential rates. At the heart of IT - and the business - lies the datacenter. The datacenter has become a complex morass of wires, maintenance contracts and complexity. As organizations seek to bring agility to their IT function, and hence to their business, new ways of handling datacenter services are required. The crux point of this transformation has proven to be the storage element of the datacenter. Businesses seeking to implement Agile IT principles are now turning to emerging services including software-defined storage and hyperconverged infrastructure. In this book, readers will learn about these critical emerging datacenter architectural opportunities, while also being provided clear context for why these services will play an increasingly important role in the datacenter of tomorrow. In the book you will: � Discover how yesterday�s IT journey has led us to today�s data center challenges; � Learn how SDS and HCI infrastructure form the basis for modern data centers; � Find ways to forge a path to help IT propel the business forward; � Uncover key trends that will shape the future of IT