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EDITOR’S QUESTION
ASSAAD EL SAADI,
REGIONAL DIRECTOR,
MIDDLE EAST, PURE STORAGE
T
he relatively short history of
hybrid cloud has furnished us with
several cautionary tales. If these
uncomfortable anecdotes were to be
compiled into a single volume, its title would
read: ‘plan ahead’. Jumping the gun in IT
projects has never yielded a happy ending
and yet we still do it. But those who ask the
right questions as they design their hybrid
IT infrastructures, are more likely to recount
a happily-ever-after story than those that
jump in with both feet.
What are your targets?
Identify your goals, zero in on your biggest
pain points and plan your attack. Maybe you
want to find better ways to run traditional
applications in a public-cloud setting. You
might want to explore ways to unlock the
limitless computing power inherent in
cloud-native applications and cloud-native
development in your data centres. Or
perhaps you just crave the cybersafety of the
public cloud for the protection of your data
and the options for Business Continuity.
Supporting on-prem and cloud-
native apps
When planning better support for enterprise
applications in the public cloud, make sure
that the data services you select not only
meet the feature requirements of your
operations, but that the performance of
those services can scale appropriately to the
needs of your apps.
If your big win is to prepare your data
centres for the support of cloud-native
apps, then you will need to add container
support and object storage capabilities.
This code portability allows cloud-native
applications to run on your premises. In
addition, associated automation tools
and self-service facilities can lead to an
www.intelligentcio.com
appreciable surge in your organisation’s
agility and allow you to deliver on cloud-
native application development.
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The bottom line is that modern IT
environments should facilitate data
strategies based on flexible consumption
models, across on-premises, hosted and
public cloud – aligning application workloads
with the most effective infrastructure. Most
importantly, the modern IT environment
should work harmoniously with a common
management interface, 100% non-
disruptive architecture and proactive/
predictive support services.
Securing the digital estate
Building your ideal hybrid IT infrastructure
will require a long, hard look at your current
security policies and the formulation of
“
DO NOT BE
AFRAID TO RE-
EVALUATE YOUR
ENTIRE DATA
PROTECTION
AND DISASTER
RECOVERY
PROCESSES, TO
ENSURE ALL YOUR
DIGITAL BASES
ARE COVERED.
new ones that allow a secure environment
without hampering your operational
ambitions. Do not be afraid to re-evaluate
your entire data protection and Disaster
Recovery processes, to ensure all your digital
bases are covered.
Your recovery objectives may have changed,
before or during the design of hybrid
cloud. As a result, you may find that the
recovery options available to you are no
longer fast enough for your new ambitions,
necessitating the switch to flash storage.
And if you find yourself needing to
repurpose your backup data under your
new paradigm, then consider using object
storage for the long term, to ensure greater
accessibility than you would receive with
tape solutions.
Modern IT infrastructure roadmaps, diligently
navigated, can take you where you want to
be, with your data working for you, delivering
the actionable insights that will keep you
relevant in the global digital economy.
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