INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud
Hybrid cloud is the future: Five tips
for successful implementations
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Aaron White, Regional Director, Middle East at Nutanix,
provides five top tips to successfully implement hybrid
cloud for those enterprises considering making the move.
T
The future is hybrid cloud
As enterprises demand stronger application
mobility and interoperability, they are
increasingly choosing hybrid cloud
infrastructure (the combined use of private
and public clouds with some degree
of integration between the two cloud
environments). While the advent of public
cloud has increased IT efficiency in certain
areas, hybrid cloud capabilities are the next
step in providing the freedom to dynamically
provision and manage applications based on
business needs.
As per findings of Nutanix’s first annual global
Enterprise Cloud Index, measuring enterprise
plans for adopting private, hybrid and public
clouds, enterprises plan to increase hybrid
cloud usage, with 91% stating hybrid cloud as
the ideal IT model, but only 18% stating they
have that model today.
The findings also revealed that application
mobility across any cloud is a top priority
for 97% of respondents – with 88% of
respondents saying it would ‘solve a lot of
my problems.’ Additionally, the report found
public cloud is not a panacea; IT decision
makers ranked matching applications to
the right cloud environment as a critical
capability, and 35% of organisations using
public clouds overspent their annual budget.
When asked to rank the primary benefits
of hybrid cloud, interoperability between
cloud types (23%) and the ability to move
applications back and forth between clouds
(16%) outranked cost (6%) and security
(5%) as the primary benefits.
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While enterprises are turning to hybrid cloud
to modernise IT for the digital era, given the
significant complexity that still exists today
in cross-cloud management and integration,
many enterprises are struggling to create an
effective hybrid cloud strategy.
Below are five tips that will provide
guidelines to regional enterprises considering
the move to a hybrid cloud model:
1. A single infrastructure or bimodal
IT? Supporting mode one (traditional)
and two (next-gen) applications with
separate infrastructure is called bimodal
IT and it’s a limiting, impractical process.
Your hybrid cloud needs to support both
seamlessly for a more agile infrastructure.
2. Don’t overlook development and
test resources. Be sure to include all
IT resources dedicated to development
work, including tools, repositories, build
servers and so on.
3. Don’t choose cloud providers too
soon. Before you start thinking about a
cloud provider, make a complete list of
the environments you’ll need to give you
an idea of what you’re doing on-prem.
Remember, this is a three to five year
commitment at least, so no rush!
4. Reconciling IT ideals and reality.
Enterprise IT is rarely perfect, but you
can still optimise it with a tactical,
practical cloud management approach.
As you work toward implementing
hybrid cloud, keep the lights on in your
current environment.
Aaron White, Regional Director, Middle East
at Nutanix
5. New to DevOps? Time to get familiar.
As an enterprise, gaining a competitive
advantage is a business necessity.
To stay ahead of the curve, many
enterprises from varying industries are
getting serious about DevOps.
In conclusion, reliance on legacy data
centre architectures – whether you own the
equipment and software or not – or getting
locked into a specific infrastructure stack can
add to technical debt, increase operating
costs and limit future flexibility.
This is becoming a thing of the past. Hybrid
cloud is the future. Hybrid cloud capabilities
constitute a growing necessity in the dynamic,
digital business climate, in which enterprises
demand the freedom to dynamically
provision and manage applications based
on business needs. Reaching this ideal
IT operating model will require more
comprehensive hybrid vendor solutions, as
well as greater expertise in designing, building
and operating hybrid clouds. n
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