Hybrid Cloud is Here to Stay: The Industry Banks on It UK Edition

SOLUTION BRIEF

Hybrid Cloud is Here to Stay: The Industry Banks on It Approximately 68% of respondents to an Oracle study explained that they have near-future plans to deploy more hybrid cloud services1.

A Move to Hybrid Clouds Cloud computing has long been discussed as a technology that could transform the way businesses function. As the cloud has evolved, the move toward hybrid cloud systems has become more and more apparent.

Common motivating factors behind this decision include: • A need to continue supporting legacy systems and existing IT processes that are valuable to the business.

• A desire to create unique infrastructure and app solutions that reside within corporate data centres.

Other Plans by Those Respondents Included:

83%

71%

Ramping up their Working to implement public cloud efforts more private cloud systems

47%

Working to commercialise and sell their cloud services to third-party customers

• An ability to leverage commodity cloud apps when they meet operational requirements.

• A greater sense of control over where data resides to ensure highly secure workflows remain housed internally.

Essentially, a hybrid cloud establishes the best of both the public and private cloud worlds, and businesses are increasingly viewing the cloud as a tool that they can use for specific functions, not something they need to strive to go all-in on. The idea of moving wholly into the public cloud is slipping away - 60%2 of respondents to a SolarWinds survey said they believe it is not likely that they will ever migrate all of their infrastructure into the cloud. Instead, organisations are choosing to mix-and-match public and private cloud systems alongside traditional infrastructure models to maximise value creation.

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SOLUTION BRIEF Hybrid Cloud is Here to Stay: The Industry Banks on It (continued)

Why Go Hybrid?

The motivating points behind the hybrid cloud are similar to those that underpin cloud strategies in general - improving business agility and responsiveness while keeping costs under control. Approximately 88%3 of respondents to a Verizon study explained that moving to the cloud has delivered on this end and improved the way IT can respond to business needs. Furthermore, 87% of those polled in the study said they have begun using the cloud for mission-critical systems.

2. Ramping Up Private Clouds Every business is unique, and the private cloud allows organisations to take the orchestration and automation of cloud systems and apply it to their internal IT configuration. This allows companies to get some of the flexibility and scalability of the public cloud - though to a lesser degree - and apply it to their internal configuration. The private cloud is rising in the enterprise as businesses work to gain a competitive edge through unique, proprietary technology solutions.

3. Ultimate Flexibility In the public cloud, your technological agility is limited by the solutions vendors can offer. In the private cloud, it is limited by what you can afford to build, manage and deploy. In the hybrid cloud, you have more options to match services with your business needs, adding another layer of flexibility to enterprise cloud systems.

These are strong arguments for the implementation of cloud solutions. Three specific reasons to go hybrid include:

1. Maximising Existing Assets Many IT assets are not only extremely expensive and complex to roll out, they are also able to offer value for an extended life cycle. Whether you are dealing with legacy equipment or apps that support a specific, vital part of your business or newer systems that work well at solving your current business needs, there are plenty of reasons to hold on to current IT assets that are getting the job done.

While the hybrid cloud sounds attractive, it also comes with a management burden. Companies must not only manage a complex, fast-moving private cloud, they must also handle legacy systems that interact with that cloud and serve as brokers with public cloud vendors.

All told, skills development could prove essential as the hybrid cloud rises, and we can help.

Learning Tree has a wide range of cloud courses that can help you get your staff up to speed on the demands and requirements of hybrid cloud setups.

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Sources: 1 https://www.oracle.com/webfolder/s/delivery_production/docs/FY16h1/doc17/Oracle-Pvt-HybridCloud-Res-Res.pdf 2 http://it-trends.solarwinds.com/ 3 http://news.verizonenterprise.com/2015/11/2016-state-enterprise-cloud-report/

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