Making the Most of Hybrid Cloud in 2022

By Special Guest
Eric Herzog, CMO, Infinidat
  |  April 07, 2022

Containerization is an important development in the evolution of cloud computing. It bundles application code together, eliminating the difficulty of moving applications from one platform to another in a specific computing environment or between on-premises and the public cloud – the essence of hybrid cloud.

Developers only need to write applications once for on-premises or the cloud or both. But this only works in a scalable, enterprise environment if your company has a hybrid cloud and containerization strategy that optimizes storage, ensures cyber resilience and flexibility in the infrastructure, and makes integration a top priority.

It’s vital to have the right storage to support container environments because container environments are what hybrid clouds are built on. You want a storage platform that is in use with Managed Hosting Providers (MHPs), Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) for their hybrid cloud technology.

If you’re an enterprise, you’d be looking for storage that is in use by a number of cloud providers. Make sure your storage vendor is a strong supplier to those providers, because it is a powerful indication that they would likely be an excellent choice for your enterprises cloud, too. All hyperscalers run in cloud configurations.

The Common Thread of Integration

There are multiple dimensions to integration that you should consider as you look at your hybrid cloud implementation.

  1. Integration with a cloud provider’s hybrid cloud appliance, such as integration with AWS Outpost.
  2. Integration with cloud providers’ on-prem appliances.
  3. Seamless integration for your backup data sets. You’d integrate from a backup perspective.
  4. Container integration. Cloud providers are building their clouds on container-based configurations. Strong support for container environments is required. 
  5. Seamless hybrid cloud integration.

Customer expectations are changing. Tools are becoming more automated. Enterprises and service providers are more open than ever to a multi-pronged approach to storage and computing environments that will allow for balancing flexibility, cost-effectiveness, security and control.

The “Private” Aspect (News - Alert) of Hybrid Cloud

Many companies execute a hybrid cloud strategy by deploying their own private cloud. The number one reason many enterprise size companies do private implementation is security, and the number two reason is cost control.

A private cloud, basically, mimics a hybrid/public cloud deployment. For many enterprises, having data sit with a third-party provider is an issue. With a private cloud, some of your data is on-prem, and some of your data is off-prem. But you own both the on-prem and off-prem part of the equation.

When you run a private configuration, it is wise to pre-negotiate networking costs because you do have to run over the network. Having highly transactional workloads and moving the data back and forth are common.

With a private cloud, you have better, more exact control over cost structure and service level agreements (SLAs). Essentially, you are able to match SLA, such as application performance and availability, with a higher level of control. 

New Opportunities with Hybrid

A hybrid cloud approach with a strong private cloud configuration creates the opportunity to consolidate storage arrays for maximum efficiency. Why do you need 22 storage arrays when you can do the same things – or better – with only 2 arrays? 

Consolidation of storage saves on operational manpower, rack space, floor space, power expense, cooling expense – CAPEX and OPEX (News - Alert) savings.

You can consolidate storage while, simultaneously, improving access to data across a hybrid cloud and a container-native environment for greater resilience, lower latency and higher availability. For today’s enterprise requirements, 100% availability is a must.   

Business Transformation Support

A core value of cloud services is the support for digital transformation. Data is the lifeblood of all enterprises in the 21st century. How to collect, manage, store, access, and use data determines the level of success a company will have.

Enterprises can innovate with the data, be strangled by the data, or even be held hostage for the data. This is why you need the strategy and the infrastructure to drive the future of data for your business.

As businesses evolve themselves digitally, a hybrid cloud strategy orchestrates all the different aspects of it in a mixed computing, storage and services environment, comprised of on-premises infrastructure, private cloud services and a public cloud, such as AWS.

Happily, AWS can interface with an enterprise-class storage platform such as InfiniBox® through AWS Outposts for a next-generation public/private cloud experience. Just in the last 18 months, advancements have been made for “on ramps” between private cloud and the public cloud.

This hybrid cloud infrastructure becomes the cornerstone for an organization’s ability to be agile and accelerate business transformation.

About the author:  Eric Herzog is the Chief Marketing Officer at Infinidat. Prior to joining Infinidat, Herzog was CMO and VP of Global Storage Channels at IBM (News - Alert) Storage Solutions. His executive leadership experience also includes: CMO and Senior VP of Alliances for all-flash storage provider Violin Memory, and Senior Vice President of Product Management and Product Marketing for EMC’s (News - Alert) Enterprise & Mid-range Systems Division.


 


Edited by Erik Linask

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