Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2014. Read them in this VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed article by Lynn LeBlanc, CEO and founder of HotLink
In 2014, Hybrid IT Will Dominate Deployments
The cloud predictions that have dominated the news over the past
several years are, in fact, materializing in real-world IT deployments across
organizations large and small. While it doesn't take a lot of sage-like vision
to forecast rapidly growing public cloud use - whether sanctioned or
unsanctioned by corporate IT - we're seeing indications that there may be some
surprises in 2014.
As an example, it now appears that government agencies may lead the
way toward widespread hybrid IT in large-scale deployments, and they'll leave
private enterprises with few excuses to stay reticent about adopting a
combination of on- and off-premise computing models. When the FBI, the
Department of Homeland Security and other agencies make major investments in
the public cloud, it's significant for the future of computing across all
market sectors. And it's not just the high-profile federal government groups
making this move. In a study released in October, the Center for Digital
Government found that 46 percent of state and local government IT professionals
report that their jurisdictions have migrated applications to the cloud or plan
to do so.
The conversation about hybrid IT in the enterprise is clearly
shifting. A year ago, corporate IT teams were focused on shadow IT problems caused
by business units and how to curtail rogue workloads in the public cloud, such
as Amazon Web Services (AWS). Today, as the most traditionally conservative
sector embraces hybrid IT, the wider enterprise conversation is about figuring
out how to leverage public cloud scalability and economics for three critical
needs: data protection including disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity
(BC), cloud bursting and workload optimization and profiling.
Hybrid IT
and data protection: In 2013, the market saw cloud backup as the next
step in the evolution of data protection. That's still a good idea, because it
eliminates redundant on-premise storage, which is expensive. We'll see plenty
of cloud backup proposals in 2014 IT plans. However, with the latest
transformation technologies, enterprises of all sizes will take that idea
further next year by not only backing up to the cloud, but also failing over to
the cloud and managing recovered workloads alongside existing day-to-day
operations resulting in comprehensive VMware DR and BC with the public cloud as
the mirror site. As data centers learn to leverage transformation solutions
that enable seamless interoperability between VMware and AWS, for example,
they'll quickly recognize how to tap into the scale and economics of the public
cloud without having to overhaul their on-premise infrastructure. In fact, data
protection is very likely to be the killer app for public cloud in the coming
year.
Hybrid IT
and cloud bursting: There is a powerful financial incentive for data
center managers to eliminate idle infrastructure, and the elastic,
pay-as-you-go AWS public cloud will provide a compelling, highly scalable and
comprehensive computing solution for many types of variable workloads in 2014. Once
a developer-only playground, AWS made serious investments into the enterprise
this year, and their roster of services reflects this commitment. When combined
with the platform transformation technologies that enable on-premise management
to readily extend to public cloud resources, hybrid on- and off-premise
computing becomes operationally viable at scale. In 2014, enterprises with spiky workloads and
infrequently used applications will turn to the public cloud in record numbers.
While AWS is the 80-pound gorilla in this space, users will have a long list of
Tier 1 IT solution providers and value-added resellers (VARs) delivering a wide
range of hybrid on- and off-premise computing solutions for every imaginable
use case ¾ and then some.
Hybrid IT
and workload optimization: Nearly every day lately I hear a conversation
that goes something like this:
-
The finance team is pushing for the public cloud for
cost reduction potential.
-
C-level execs are pushing for public cloud so the
business can concentrate on its core mission, rather than managing
infrastructure.
-
The corporate IT team has been resistant because
many of the technologies were immature, they are held accountable for making
sure computing systems don't fail, and hybrid IT is more complex than
homogeneous IT.
-
The decision makers have agreed that 2014 is the
year to identify the low-hanging fruit and highest value workloads or public cloud deployment.
This is a much different conversation than the one we heard so often a
year ago.
Hybrid IT is no longer falling under the one-day-when-it's-ready or
let's-discuss-it-eventually categories. In many ways, this shift stems from the
government's early adoption of hybrid IT. If national security organizations
are satisfied that the risk question has been answered, then the path is clear
for corporate data centers to move initial workloads to public clouds such as
Amazon. In 2014, it will be all about evaluating where to leverage public cloud
economics and how to streamline hybrid operations.
##
About the Author
Lynn LeBlanc,
CEO and founder of HotLink Corporation, has more than 25 years of
enterprise software and technology experience at both Fortune 500 companies and
Silicon Valley start-ups. Prior to founding HotLink, LeBlanc was founder and
CEO of FastScale Technology, an enterprise software company acquired by VMware,
Inc.