This educational blog answers the question, “What is composable infrastructure for the cloud era?” and presents a high-level overview of integrating software-defined storage with composable infrastructure. For more technical information on Lightbits software-defined block storage, start with our product page.
In today’s fast-evolving business landscape, where products are digitized and monetized in the cloud, IT is under constant pressure to modernize the data center to efficiently support cloud-native applications at scale. One IT infrastructure model stands out as a true enabler of modern data center architecture in a cloud era: composable infrastructure. When combined with software-defined storage (SDS), it creates a highly dynamic, efficient, and scalable cloud-scale infrastructure that maximizes resource utilization and operational agility.
What Is Composable Infrastructure?
Taking aid from authoritative sources, such as cio-wiki.org, “Composable Infrastructure is a modern approach to data center architecture that allows IT administrators to dynamically create, adapt, and manage compute, storage, and networking resources based on the specific needs of cloud-native applications or workloads.” The core concept is simple yet transformative: treat data center resources as fluid pools rather than static, siloed entities. This allows IT teams to allocate tailored data center infrastructure configurations for specific applications and workloads in real time. These resources can be easily allocated, reallocated, and scaled as needed, enabling more efficient and flexible hardware resource utilization.
When combined with a software-defined data center strategy, IT teams can leverage composable infrastructure to simplify storage management via the software UI, easily provisioning, deploying, and managing storage resources on demand, eliminating the inefficiencies of over-provisioning and under-utilization of resources.
Components of a Composable Infrastructure Platform
A composable infrastructure platform is built with the following elements:
- Composable Hardware: Compute (virtualized or bare metal servers), storage, and network resources (VNF and physical network resources) are aggregated into shared pools that can be allocated as needed for better resource utilization.
- Composable Software: SDS decouples storage hardware from the management layer, allowing for dynamic and efficient allocation of storage resources across applications. The integration of composable infrastructure software ensures storage scales seamlessly alongside compute and network resources, enabling fast response to swiftly changing workload demands.
- High-Speed Interconnects: Low-latency, high-bandwidth interconnects, such as NVMe-oF, NVMe over TCP (NVMe/TCP), ensure fast I/O operations are essential for maintaining high performance for performance-intensive workloads like AI/ML, real-time analytics, and transactional workloads.
- Composable APIs: APIs enable developers and IT teams to programmatically access and manage resources, ensuring platform automation and flexibility.
This modularity allows organizations to simplify IT operations and respond to workload requirements with unprecedented speed and precision.
To learn more, visit key composable infrastructure terminology published by Lightbits Luminary partner HPE.
Market Conditions
The market for composable infrastructure is shaped by the growing demand for agility and flexibility to power modern data centers with cloud-scale efficiency. Organizations seek data center solutions that deliver fast time-to-market and scalability while maintaining on-premises control. This has led to hybrid and multi-cloud strategies, where composable infrastructure plays seamlessly across private, public, and on-premises environments.
However, challenges remain, including integrating composable elements with legacy systems. Despite this hurdle, the market shows significant potential for growth. Mordor Intelligence estimates that the market will grow from $6.90B in 2024 to $18.01B by 2029, with a CAGR of 21.16% during the forecast period. Digital transformation initiatives, particularly in emerging markets like Asia-Pacific, are expanding their adoption, while advancements in AI-driven automation and orchestration promise to enhance their capabilities further. Composable infrastructure vendors, such as Dell and Lightbits Luminary partner Lenovo, are major players.
Source: Mordor Intelligence Research & Advisory. (2024, August). Composable Infrastructure Market Size & Share Analysis – Growth Trends & Forecasts (2024 – 2029). Mordor Intelligence. Retrieved December 20, 2024, from https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/composable-infrastructure-market
How Does a Composable Infrastructure Look in Real-World Examples
Organizations like cloud service providers and research institutions benefit significantly from composable infrastructure. A cloud provider might use it to scale services dynamically based on user demand, ensuring optimal resource utilization. Similarly, a research institution running simulations or data analysis can leverage composable infrastructure to allocate massive compute and storage resources on demand for high-performance workloads.
While any organization seeking a cloud-like architecture for an on-premises data center would benefit from this architecture, these two examples demonstrate the benefits in diverse operational scenarios. For example, in an on-premises data center utilizing composable infrastructure, a development team might request resources for a new application. Instead of manually provisioning the resources, the system dynamically allocates the required compute power, storage capacity, and network bandwidth through a centralized software interface, delivering the much-needed resources within minutes.
Examples of composable infrastructure solutions include systems from Lightbits Luminary Partner Lenovo. Integrating ThinkAgile CP Series with Lightbits software-defined block storage provides a turnkey cloud experience within an organization’s data center, featuring end-to-end automation. This design allows for rapid deployment and simplified management of cloud resources, delivering the agility and scalability associated with public cloud services while maintaining on-premises control. By utilizing composable building blocks from Lenovo and Lightbits, you can efficiently manage and scale your IT infrastructure in response to evolving workload demands while supporting a wide range of applications from web services to data analytics.
Lenovo ThinkSystem Storage Server. https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/servers-storage/storage/
These platforms are often used in industries requiring high-performance computing, such as AI/ML, edge computing, financial services for real-time analytics, biotech, and eCommerce for scaling operations during peak demand.
Read this case study, for a real-world example of a customer who built their eCommerce business on a combined solution of Lightbits with Lenovo.
Use Cases
Hybrid Cloud Deployments: Composable infrastructure seamlessly integrates with hybrid cloud environments. SDS enhances this implementation model by providing consistent storage management across environments, ensuring optimal workload allocation, and supporting data sovereignty and compliance requirements.
High-Performance Computing (HPC): Composable infrastructure enables you to dynamically compose the exact configurations needed for simulations, scientific research, or data analysis, ensuring optimal performance. SDS ensures that storage can scale in line with these demands, providing the speed and capacity required for large-scale computations.
Disaster Recovery and Backup: The ability to rapidly reallocate resources and quickly spin up recovery environments, minimizing downtime and ensuring business continuity is a benefit not to be understated. With SDS, your recovery strategt can include dynamically allocated storage that aligns perfectly with operational needs, speeding up recovery times and reducing costs.
Visit, “How Composable Infrastructure can help companies adopt cloud practices,” to learn more.
Conclusion
Composable infrastructure represents a significant leap forward in how organizations can manage and deploy IT resources. By breaking down traditional resource silos and embracing a modular, software-defined approach, you can achieve unparalleled agility, cost-efficiency, and scalability. Integrating SDS amplifies composable benefits, ensuring that storage needs are met with precision and flexibility. As a catalyst for innovation, composable infrastructure is an ideal architecture for today’s data center challenges but a foundational framework for the cloud era.
Driving Innovation, Efficiency, and Collaboration
Traditional IT infrastructures (SAN, DAS) often suffer from inefficiencies, such as under-utilized servers or over-provisioned storage, overly complex architectures, and can result in silos of data. Composable infrastructure ensures resources are allocated based on real-time requirements and break down silos. The agility to rapidly spin up or tear down infrastructure configurations supports faster application development and testing, enabling businesses to bring new products and services to market more quickly. Adding software-defined storage further optimizes costs by abstracting and pooling storage resources, reducing the need for expensive, dedicated hardware solutions. Provisioning the storage needed for specific workloads without delays eliminates bottlenecks and enhances productivity. Providing a unified, software-defined view of all resources, streamlining DevOps practices, and accelerating the deployment pipeline.
Future-Proof Your Data Center
As organizations embrace digital transformation, the demand for flexible, scalable IT solutions will only grow. Layer in a software-defined data center architecture strategy that aligns with the industry’s shift away from hardware-centric architectures and you get a robust foundation for emerging technologies such as AI/ML, cloud, and edge computing. These workloads often require dynamic resource allocation to handle fluctuating demands effectively. Integrating SDS enhances flexibility and efficiency, making composable systems ideal for modular, scalable infrastructures. With this combination, you can achieve significant cost savings by optimizing resource utilization, reducing capital expenditures through tailored provisioning, and minimizing operational expenses with automation. A software-defined, composable infrastructure is poised to play a central role in this evolution, enabling you to:
- Respond swiftly to market changes
- Experiment with innovative business models
- Deliver exceptional customer experiences
When composable infrastructure and software-defined storage work together, they create a foundation for a modern data center that is agile, efficient, and prepared for future cloud-native challenges. The combination not only optimizes current operations but also positions you to innovate and thrive in a fast-changing cloud environment.
In the cloud era, where speed, efficiency, and agility define success, composable infrastructure—empowered by software-defined storage—is the ultimate enabler for organizations aiming to stay ahead of the curve.
Are you ready to harness the power of composable infrastructure combined with high-performance, scalable block storage? Explore Lightbits solutions today and prepare to transform your data strategy for the cloud era.
