What is multi-cloud vs. hybrid cloud?
How do containers and microservices work with hybrid cloud?
How can I prepare for the hybrid cloud model?
What are the key hybrid cloud security considerations?
How does hybrid cloud help with digital transformation?
How can I find and retain hybrid cloud talent?
Where can I learn more about hybrid cloud?
IT leaders looking to learn and do more with the hybrid cloud computing model have many choices right now – just the pace of developments and new offers can seem overwhelming.
“I often refer to this year as the year of the cloud land grab,” says Ed Featherston, VP and principal architect at Cloud Technology Partners. “I liken it to the homestead years of the 1800s in the U.S., when the different territories tried attracting homesteaders for mutual benefit and growth.”
How are IT leaders using hybrid cloud? What is multi-cloud and how does it differ from hybrid cloud? What are the key hybrid cloud security considerations? Where can I find hybrid cloud talent? Amid all the noise, you have questions. We have rounded up answers.
Our hybrid cloud guide brings you the latest and best information from our ongoing hybrid cloud coverage, so you can get up to speed in one spot. Let’s delve into expert advice and analysis from cloud community experts – and top CIOs.
Hybrid cloud is not a product, or a place: It’s an approach to cloud computing that includes a combination of private (on-premises or managed/hosted) and public cloud environments. A hybrid cloud environment lets you choose the right workload for the right environment, as well as move workloads around as business needs and technology change.
Consider this hybrid cloud definition from Radhesh Balakrishnan, general manager, OpenStack, Red Hat: “A mix of on-premises private cloud and third-party public cloud with orchestration between these two.” Your mix may include on-premises infrastructure, virtualization, bare-metal servers, and/or containers.
Increasingly, both containers and microservices are being used in concert with a hybrid cloud environment.
Ask IT leaders what appeals about the hybrid cloud model and you typically hear two top answers: Agility and speed.
“In a ‘fail fast’ world, waiting several weeks for infrastructure to be deployed in order to support a new idea – that may only be deployed for a few days – is a nonstarter, ” says Nathan A. Ulery, managing director, performance services at IT consulting firm West Monroe Partners.
Portable workloads running on cloud services help IT support business experiments that have to happen fast. They also help IT support business projects that get spun up first without IT being involved. Hybrid cloud’s flexibility helps IT and the business stay agile.
SunTrust CIO Anil Cheriyan recently wrote about his team’s formula for speed. His five-part approach includes cloud, modular architecture, DevOps, agile development, and design thinking. “Each plays a critical role in allowing us to better serve our clients and to move faster,” he writes.
But IT has shown it does not want to put all its eggs in one cloud provider’s basket. Hybrid also eases vendor lock-in concerns. As we recently reported, “One interesting data point in Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers venture capitalist Mary Meeker’s 2017 Internet Trends report is that while CIO security concerns regarding public cloud providers are trending down, concerns regarding vendor lock-in are trending up.”
“In 2012, 42 percent of respondents cited data security among their top three worries, but only 35 percent did in 2015. And while 7 percent cited vendor lock-in concerns in 2012, 22 percent did so in 2015.”
Consistent customer experience and resiliency matter too: Many IT leaders have decided that a multi-cloud strategy offers strong protection against downtime – and on the security front, often better security expertise than they have in-house.
