The path on your “journey to the cloud” is not necessarily a straight line.The graph below shows where various types of workload implementation and

execution take place in the path from the traditional data center to the public cloud.

Two benchmark studies, conducted nearly two years apart between early 2014 and late 2015 show how virtualization and cloud computing

deployments continue to mature. But note the emphasis on 'continue to' - there is still progress to be made for many organizations slow to take the

plunge away from the traditional data center model.

For organizations slow to take the plunge, the top 3 concerns of enterprise customers around investments in virtualization and cloud initiatives are:

A simple model for the “stack” of technologies involved in virtualization and cloud computing has 6 basic layers:

And adding to enterprises' concerns is the sheer complexity given the number of vendors and choices companies have:

Aberdeen’s Computer Intelligence Technology Data Set (CiTDS) has visibility into more than

1.6 billion different technology permutations – talk about complexity!

This top-down approach begins with a strategic focus on the applications themselves, not on the underlying information technology.

Integrated systems are architected, integrated, tested, and optimized – from their inception – for applications to work together (unlike disparate parts from multiple vendors) and provide a functional equivalency between workloads, regardless of where they are being executed – whether on-premises or running in the cloud.

Focus on the things closest to your organization’s business objectives. In other words, enterprise strategies for virtualization and cloud computing initiatives should be driven by your business-critical application workloads, and those workloads are best served by an integrated systems approach.

On your journey to the cloud, keep the business goal in mind…and let your workloads be your guide!

From a top-down, application workload-centric perspective, enterprises can cope with the complexity, cost, and risk of the virtualization and cloud computing stack by

relying on integrated systems vendors. But there is a way to ease your journey to the cloud.

% Value Unchanged 17% Increase

Clash of the Workloads: Implementation vs. Execution

Risk, Integration, and Complexity

Coping with Cloud Complexity: Companies Have Clear Choices

Form Follows Function: Let Your Workloads Be the Guide!Integrated Systems Are Architected for Effficiency

Private/Public Cloud Workload

Journey to the Cloud: Let the Workloads Be Your Guide

About

of applications in our study are virtualized

workloads

Data security, privacy, and regulatory compliance

The complexity of virtualization technologies

and cloud services

Private/Public Cloud WorkloadAbout

of applications in our study are executed on cloud service providers

Application

Virtualization

Management

Physical Servers

Storage

Networking

First: Workloads are virtualized.

Then: They are executed on the infrastructure that bestaddresses the organization’s requirements for the following:

performancereliabilitygeographic location trust levelcompliancecost

2014 2015

2015

% Virtualized Workloads % Cloud Workloads

2014

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

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100% Traditional Data Center

100% Public Cloud

0% 50% 100%

100%

50%

0%-

Desktop/ProductivityData Storage

Finance/AccountingERP

HR

CRM

ManufacturingBusiness Intelligence

Light Business Apps

File Synch / Share

EmailWeb Apps

0% 50% 100%

100%

50%

0%-

Database

% of Selected Workloads

Executed Outside the Enterprise Data Center

Where Workloads

Are Executed

% of Selected Workloads that Have Been VirtualizedHow Workloads Are Implemented

64%

57%

RISK INTEGRATION COMPLEXITY

Integration with existing infrastructure and business

processes

36% 30%

32%