the journey to hybrid cloud computing

8/13/2019 The journey to hybrid cloud computing

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The journey to hybrid cloud computingBob Tarzey, Analyst and Director

Quocirca Comment December 2013

The journey to hybri d cloud

computing

http: //www.quocirca.com 2013 Quocir ca L td

The use of public cloud platforms as a

deployment option for applications is often

talked about in black and white terms such as do

we deploy to the cloud or keep the application

on-premise?This is misleading, as many

businesses assess the suitability of public cloud

only for the most appropriate use cases and often

this will be for supplementary resources. The

cloud journey will take them to a pragmatic

balance between the use of their own internal

infrastructure, often re-purposed as private

cloud, and those provisioned from public cloud

service providersthis is hybrid cloud

computing.

For the hybrid cloud to become a reality,

workloads must be easy to move between private

and public infrastructure. A pre-requisite for thisto happen is the transformation of data centre

provisioning. A recent Quocirca research report

In demand - the culture of online service

provisionshows that this process is well

underway. 85% of businesses now say they use

server virtualisation and in many cases this is

being used to pool resources to share them

between multiple applicationsin other words,

IT departments are creating their own private

clouds.

There are two big benefits for businesses in

doing this. First, it makes the use of equipment

and power in their own data centres more

efficient, and second, it enables the workloads

that make up their applications to be more

mobile. They can be moved from one private

data centre to another or beyond the data centre

to make use of public cloud resources. With that

flexibility in place, the businesses do not have to

keep investing in new data centre facilities and

IT infrastructure, to get more and more out of

their applications.

In this way, the use of public cloud will often be

to supplement in-house requirements. Here are

some of the top hybrid cloud use cases:

Public cloud as a failover platformWhatever the cost comparisons one comes up

with for public cloud versus private cloud, one

thing is certainly true; maintaining an un-used

infrastructure stack for business continuity

reasons in case the usual run time platforms fails

is expensive and unnecessary. The same resource

can be rented from a public cloud provider on

the (hopefully) rare occasion it is needed.

Having a public cloud provider on standby is a

far more cost-effective way of having redundantinfrastructure when disaster occurs.

Handling peak loadsMany organisations have times of the week,

month, year or just some unpredictable event

that leads to an application having a far higher

workload than is normal. When this is the case,

having the excess capacity required on standby

internally is expensive. Far cheaper is to have an

arrangement with a cloud service provider that

allows new application workloads to beprovisioned at will. The service providers can

cope with this because they have many

customers with peak loads at different times and

the reallocation of resources is possible at

relatively low cost.

Planning for unexpected success (or failure)Kicking off a new venturefor example a new

retail web site or new social media application

is an unpredictable business. What if it takes off
http://www.citrix.com/news/market-research/oct-2013/quocirca-in-demand-the-culture-of-online-service-provision.htmlhttp://www.citrix.com/news/market-research/oct-2013/quocirca-in-demand-the-culture-of-online-service-provision.htmlhttp://www.citrix.com/news/market-research/oct-2013/quocirca-in-demand-the-culture-of-online-service-provision.htmlhttp://www.citrix.com/news/market-research/oct-2013/quocirca-in-demand-the-culture-of-online-service-provision.htmlhttp://www.citrix.com/news/market-research/oct-2013/quocirca-in-demand-the-culture-of-online-service-provision.htmlhttp://www.citrix.com/news/market-research/oct-2013/quocirca-in-demand-the-culture-of-online-service-provision.html


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far faster than expected? What if it flops? There

are plenty of examples of both. So, how much do

you invest in the supporting infrastructureupfront? The answer is very little if a public

cloud platform is used. The risk of the new

venture is far easier to justify if the capital

investment is minimised and, if you hit the

jackpot, the fees to the cloud service provider

may seem like chicken feed compared to the new

revenue being generated. Such a capability

should encourage more innovation within the

organisationmore ideas can be tried out as the

risk and cost of failure is minimised. When the

business case is proven, that may be the time touse up dedicated in-house resources.

Public cloud as an application test bedApplications are often developed on dedicated

servers, rightly isolated from run time

environments. Whilst most functionality can be

tested in such environments, scalability cannot.

Testing new code in run time environment is

risky as it may impact the current actual live

application. Some might be able to do this at

night, but many applications now have to operate24*7. Public cloud platforms provide an idealenvironment for such testing. Resources can be

allocated to make the test environment match the

live one as closely as possible and new software

put through its paces.

The stage is set for a flood of workloads from

private to public cloud; in most cases this will be

reach equilibrium between the two. Many

organisations admit they need help on this

journey, in another research report published

earlier this yearThe mid-market conundrum

only about 25% of UK mid-market

organisations considered they were very well

prepared for the use of public cloud services.

The majority wanted help with putting business

continuity plans in place and to be free to focus

on application flexibility rather than building

platforms. To this end they saw more and more

workloads moving on to third party platforms.

In many cases the platforms used will be those of

the giants of cloud computing; Amazon Web

Services (AWS), Rackspace, MicrosoftWindows Azure, Savvis, Dimension Data and so

on. However, as Quocircas mid-market research

shows, assistance will be sought from IT service

providers (ITSPs) to help on the journey. To this

end, the pragmatic ITSPs, such as Attenda (the

sponsor of The Mid-market conundrum

research report), are helping their clients on the

journey to hybrid cloud computing via its own

M.O. (modus operandi) operations platform

which enables the management, monitoring and

control of hybrid deployments. This may includethe clients own internal resources, those of the

major cloud service providers and, when it

makes sense, Attendasown infrastructure and

services.

As with many journeys, the final destination to

hybrid cloud is not fixed, but it is one all

businesses must set out on; if they are to ensure

they achieve the goal that is so important to

manyinnovation, agility and competitive

advantage through the efficient and effective useof IT resources.

This article first appeared in Tech Republic

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/the-

enterprise-cloud/four-scenarios-where-

hybrid-cloud-makes-sense/
http://www.attenda.net/downloads/Download.aspx?dl=Attenda-White-Paper-Mid-Market-Conudrum.pdfhttp://www.attenda.net/downloads/Download.aspx?dl=Attenda-White-Paper-Mid-Market-Conudrum.pdfhttp://www.attenda.net/downloads/Download.aspx?dl=Attenda-White-Paper-Mid-Market-Conudrum.pdfhttp://www.attenda.net/downloads/Download.aspx?dl=Attenda-White-Paper-Mid-Market-Conudrum.pdfhttp://www.attenda.net/downloads/Download.aspx?dl=Attenda-White-Paper-Mid-Market-Conudrum.pdfhttp://www.attenda.net/downloads/Download.aspx?dl=Attenda-White-Paper-Mid-Market-Conudrum.pdf


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About QuocircaQuocirca is a primary research and analysis company specialising in the business impact of information technology

and communications (ITC). With world-wide, native language reach, Quocirca provides in-depth insights into theviews of buyers and influencers in large, mid-sized and small organisations. Its analyst team is made up of real-world practitioners with first-hand experience of ITC delivery who continuously research and track the industry

and its real usage in the markets.

Through researching perceptions, Quocirca uncovers the real hurdles to technology adoption the personal andpolitical aspects of an organisations environment and the pressures of the need for demonstrable business value inany implementation. This capability to uncover and report back on the end-user perceptions in the market enables

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Quocirca research is always pragmatic, business orientated and conducted in the context of the bigger picture. ITC

has the ability to transform businesses and the processes that drive them, but often fails to do so. Quocircasmission is to help organisations improve their success rate in process enablement through better levels of

understanding and the adoption of the correct technologies at the correct time.

Quocirca has a pro-active primary research programme, regularly surveying users, purchasers and resellers of ITCproducts and services on emerging, evolving and maturing technologies. Over time, Quocirca has built a picture of

long term investment trends, providing invaluable information for the whole of the ITC community.

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