More and more enterprises are investing in the cloud, finding that migration often results in better system performance, an enhanced customer experience and reduced costs. For many, a gradual cloud integration was preferred, and many have opted instead for a hybrid cloud environment, because it often results in better performance when compared to a full migration.
Hybrid cloud allows enterprises to optimize their technology environment in a way not possible with either on-premise solutions or a full cloud migration. While Gartner published in its “2016 Strategic Roadmap for Data Center Infrastructure” that a full 10% of enterprises plan to close their on-site data centers permanently by 2018, it appears that many will continue to run some cloud and some on-site indefinitely.
Optimizing Hybrid: The same report indicates that by 2019, 80% of enterprises will have an IT approach that includes a variety of providers for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), as well as others. Consider these findings from the IBM Center for Applied Insights:
· Seven out of ten respondents said that they expect to permanently have a blend of cloud and on-site systems.
· Nine out of ten say that they believe a hybrid approach provides a greater return on investment than they could achieve with a full cloud migration.
This report also notes that the primary goal of hybrid cloud investment is improving productivity, with strategic workloads moved to the cloud.
New revenue opportunities: In addition to improving productivity, another way that enterprises are improving their return on investment is through new revenue opportunities with initiatives related to the Internet of Things (IoT). These kinds of investments make factors like visibility, analytics and reporting even more critical, as well as security concerns.
Infrastructure requirements: As hybrid cloud evolves to meet the needs of technology like IoT, the enterprise needs the infrastructure to support it. This may mean a network solution that can segment out certain traffic related to IoT and machine learning, for better security and more efficient analysis. The enterprise may require far more bandwidth to keep pace with the demand for added devices and the software that supports them.
In many hybrid cloud environments, the transition to cloud solutions has been gradual, with little strategic planning related to optimizing network infrastructure. In many cases, issues with latency and congestion creep in over time and IT teams may require a new approach to connectivity.
Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) provides a solution to the complex infrastructure needs of a hybrid cloud environment. Added visibility, centralized troubleshooting and configuration and the ability to segment out traffic based on business policy are all features that assist in optimizing hybrid cloud.
To learn more about implementing SD-WAN to support your hybrid cloud environment, contact us at eXemplify.