Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2013. Read them in this VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed article by Vic Nyman Co-Founder and COO of BlueStripe Software
2013 Predictions: The Breakout Year for Hybrid Cloud
It isn't difficult to predict a big year for Cloud computing
in 2013. We all know that Cloud will continue to grow at a high rate. Saying that, though, isn't really a
"prediction." When I meet with IT executives, they all have different needs
with Cloud, but they have a common question:
"What do I need to do
right now to make Cloud implementations work for my company?"
To answer this, we start with a look
at where Cloud implementations are today, and then look at the changes that are
coming. In 2012, internal virtualization
projects moved from server consolidation to true on-demand computing services,
mostly as internal Private Cloud environments.
Some organizations are using self-service portals to deploy applications
by simply specifying capacity and performance needs - leaving platform
assignment and configuration to automation and the hosting team.
So with successful Private Cloud deployments under our
belts, what's next? The answer is
actually quite simple when you follow the progression.
2013 will be known as the breakout year for Hybrid Cloud! I'm not referring to just the concept of Hybrid Cloud. I mean truly deployed mission critical
business services delivered to end users through powerful Hybrid Cloud environments. There are three drivers that will make this
possible.
We've already touched on the first - the fact that Operations
and Development teams are comfortable deploying applications into Private Cloud
environments. Proof that mission
critical applications can be successfully deployed in a Cloud environment
enables further exploration in the space.
The second driver of Hybrid Cloud growth is the expanded delivery
of true Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service offerings from
public cloud companies like Microsoft Azure and Amazon. The PaaS and IaaS offerings are more than
just computing capacity, providing identifiable secure platforms within the
public environment.
This is a huge step for deploying critical applications in
Hybrid Cloud. It allows the Ops team to scale front-end user systems on-demand
(in the Cloud) while maintaining complete
control of the sensitive critical back-end systems (in the Data Center). Without this duality, enterprises would not be
able to deploy mission critical apps in an off-premise Cloud environment at
all.
Simply having platform-as-a-service, though, isn't enough
for widespread adoption. The resulting system must be completely manageable by
the IT Ops team. Resource utilization reports
aren't enough. The Ops team MUST know
how user transactions flow in the data center and in the Cloud - AND
they need to be able to stitch both into a single end-to-end transaction.
Here's a screen shot from BlueStripe's FactFinder product that
highlights the duality of Hybrid Cloud and what's required to track a
transaction across the Hybrid Cloud application infrastructure. The transaction mapped in the screen shot is from
a real service running in a Hybrid Microsoft Azure environment. The grey box in the center is a
firewall. To the left is a Web Server (IIS)
running inside Azure. To the right of
the firewall is a WebSphere App Server and Database from the on premise data
center. As use increases, the
Azure-based Web Site can increase capacity on demand, while the critical
business logic remains safely entrenched in the data center.
For executives (and anyone else looking to migrate from
on-premise virtualization and Private Cloud to true Hybrid Cloud), visibility
into the entire application is a key requirement for making the move. Back to
our executive question: to make Hybrid
Cloud work in 2013, executives need to ensure that they have full visibility
into the entire application footprint - across their on premise systems and
through the different flavors of Cloud.
Hybrid Cloud offers tremendous flexibility for application
deployment and scaling, and we expect to see significant growth in deployments
going forward. So raise your glass (so to speak) on New Year's Eve (assuming
the Mayans were wrong) and say "Cheers" to the Year of Hybrid Cloud.
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About the Author
Vic Nyman is Co-Founder and COO of
BlueStripe Software, a leader in application and transaction monitoring
solutions. With 25 years of systems management experience, Vic Nyman is a
successful veteran of multiple ventures in the systems and application
management field. Prior to founding BlueStripe Software, Nyman served as
Chairman and CEO of Relicore in the ITSM Discovery and Configuration management
market. Nyman led Relicore to a successful merger with Symantec in 2006. Prior
to Relicore, Nyman was with Wily Technology, and served in several executive
positions with IBM in the Tivoli and Networking Software organizations.