A hybrid-cloud computing environment combines public and private cloud services with on-premise infrastructure, offering organisations an invaluable degree of flexibility. As a result, enterprises can benefit from the scalability and economies of scale of public cloud, as well as the security and customisation of private cloud, all the while preserving pre-existing IT infrastructures. Put simply, it allows users to get the best of both spheres, while ensuring workloads are treated as effectively and economically as possible.
But despite these myriad benefits, challenges still exist. Robinson told The New Economy: “Most of the enterprises that we’re talking to view cloud as their North Star, but they’re starting to look at the transformational impact that it may have and it’s fairly broad – in fact, we have several firms calling it a ‘core transformation’.”
Rajaraman agreed: “These challenges touch on everything, including how you actually organise the process of transformation in terms of centres of competency, skills and architecture, so that you can converge the organisation around good patterns with building for the cloud.
“It also involves questions such as, how do I transform my existing estate? How do I manage and govern my data? And how do I build my new generation of service management? The moment you get into a hybrid world, you have a whole cluster of providers. Essentially, it takes a problem that is contained within a data centre and expands to a whole host of different players.” Organisations must then consider how best to deliver their service within such an environment, how to ensure it’s secure and how to manage the prospect of a variety of people owning different aspects of it.
When considering these questions, the need to identify the right partner becomes clear for all to see. “This is where we get a tremendous resonance with our enterprise customers,” Rajaraman said. “We’re one of the few companies that understands what it takes to deliver all of the changes that need to happen to transition to hybrid cloud. And we have the assets to do it, too – be it transformation assets, management assets, security, data or the governance of data. That’s a big deal.”