Hybrid Cloud Needs to be Simplified and Turn its Demerits into Merits

As per research, the Global Hybrid Cloud Market size will reach USD 173.33 billion with a CAGR of 22.25% by 2025. Most organisations are moving towards hybrid cloud as they have understood that no single cloud is a one-size-fits-all solution. This means that the CIOs and technology support teams need to not just evaluate an array of services to which their businesses can connect and benefit but understand if they can manage them for better results. The CIOs across organisations are focused to achieve hybrid cloud solutions which can deliver fast, agile, high quality and secure application services from across multiple sites and providers. The top traits among them include global delivery of services, business continuity, cloud-smart flexibility and cost management.

‌
Expert Commentary
Hybrid Cloud Needs to be Simplified and Turn its Demerits into Merits
As per research, the Global Hybrid Cloud Market size will reach USD 173.33 billion with a CAGR of 22.25% by 2025. Most organisations are moving towards hybrid cloud as they have understood that no single cloud is a one-size-fits-all solution. This means that the CIOs and technology support teams need to not just evaluate an array of services to which their businesses can connect and benefit but understand if they can manage them for better results. The CIOs across organisations are focused to achieve hybrid cloud solutions which can deliver fast, agile, high quality and secure application services from across multiple sites and providers. The top traits among them include global delivery of services, business continuity, cloud-smart flexibility and cost management.

Yes, it is quite a task and the following guidelines for approaching the hybrid cloud will help get things moving in the right direction. Following these will help transform on-premises virtualised environments into a cloud-like hybrid cloud delivery platform with ease. This is much needed considering that while the hybrid cloud brings its set of positive features, its complex functioning is a bigger demerit. So, simplifying the operations of the hybrid cloud will give the organizations the benefit CIOs are looking for.

How to simplify hybrid cloud?

1. Make a foundational start, then refine your roadmap
Start by reimagining how to manage applications and workloads with the most optimum resources. Then right-size those resources to maintain cost efficiencies and to meet new app resource demands effectively. The outcomes won’t come in one step, but such a hybrid cloud foundation will enable organizations to start rethinking the roadmap for IT services based on those experiences. Solutions like Hitachi UCP RS, bring these things to life.

2. Set operational expectations for Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid cloud experiences run the gamut. For the sake of simplicity, one experience could be around the provisioning of a server to support a new application service. If using a hyper-scale cloud, a simple request via the provider’s API would see a couple of servers ready for use within minutes. Hitachi has a great deal of expertise bringing such experiences to on-premises environments running VMware vSphere. Hitachi solutions make infrastructure more cloud-like in terms of how they operate, are used and are financed.

3. Manage and protect data with the cloud
Every application has its own set of SLAs for recoverability and business continuity. Hyperscalers make references to availability zones and s3 clouds for good reason. But it’s also important to ensure you have the capabilities to generate copies of production data for testing, development, and analytics, as well. Data and infrastructure availability are keywords in the Hitachi lexicon and they drive a lot of our internal thinking. Hitachi can help add cloud-level protection and recoverability to traditional data center applications hosted on local VMware virtualization environments and that can be the first step into the hybrid cloud.

4. Make data accessible to cloud services, but maintain control
When it comes to working with data, Hitachi Cloud Connect enables organizations to extend data center operations to third-party operators like Equinix while remaining securely within their on-premise security boundaries. On-premise data hosted or virtualized by VSP storage can easily be replicated to Cloud Connect to allow it to be accessed by cloud provider services for analytics and other data processing needs.

5. Ensure you have the flexibility to run apps on other clouds
Some of the cloud assessments will identify applications that will want to have infrastructure capabilities to migrate or burst into other clouds. Some refer to this “bursting” as application spanning. The nirvana is to do this without requiring a whole new set of operational processes irrespective of where an application is running. It is required for today’s hybrid VM and container-based application services.

By following these simple steps with the help of tools from Hitachi Systems, any complexities faced due to the hybrid cloud can be eased and solved providing an advantage to the organizations using these new-age technologies.