Hybrid cloud adoption: why vendors are making the switch in 2022 and why you should too

Source: Finance Derivative

Aruba Enterprise Marketing Manager, Massimo Bandinelli

Despite the low start-up cost and convenience of public cloud solutions, vendors are now re-evaluating their operations and looking to reap the benefits of hybrid offerings.

In the wake of the global pandemic, Massimo Bandinelli, Aruba Enterprise Marketing Manager, believes that 2022 is the year that businesses need to re-examine their IT infrastructure and move towards newer and better solutions.

Business operations have undergone a massive transformation in recent years as the integration of digital technology has grown immensely across the industry. The World Economic Forum predicts great technological changes for the future, and global boardrooms are no different. The digital revolution doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. In 2022 and beyond, organisations will continue to fuse the lines between physical and digital worlds, as they observe how technology can enhance how we work in today’s post-pandemic world and utilise it to drive productivity and futureproof operations.

Thanks to the shift towards remote working, cloud computing has now become a key component of IT operations for enterprises. It was unsurprising that 96% of US data centre experts reported increased demand for data centre services since the start of the pandemic, according to a recent survey by ABB Power Conversion. This is just the beginning. Business owners are likely to continue to invest in a range of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, big data analytics, 5G and more, driving more data centre demand for many years to come. Without a solid cloud framework, the joining of these innovations would be unsupported and risky.

The move towards modified hybrid solutions is becoming a trend amongst vendors in the industry, since they offer a combination of private and public cloud design. So how can enterprises benefit from switching from a public cloud solution to a more bespoke hybrid offering? Let’s examine this more closely.

Looking towards hybrid cloud options

Whilst public cloud solutions have the appeal of flexibility, ease of use and low capital expenditure, these advantages come at the cost of a greater number of drawbacks. One disadvantage is that companies are forced to make performance and functionality compromises because of the regulations that govern external cloud platforms. As a result, companies may become too dependent on these platforms, making it impossible for them to switch vendors. Additionally, as enterprises scale up their cloud operations over time, the low-cost setup will likely result in high operating costs.

In essence, the hybrid cloud provides a bespoke offering of different technologies, customised to a company’s requirements and objectives. With this solution, a public cloud (cloud) is combined with a physical data centre (private cloud), allowing for the sending and receiving of data and applications between cloud and on-premises data centres. Among the greatest benefits of hybrid cloud computing are security, scalability, cost and compliance. Let’s explore them individually.

Greater scalability

Industry leaders have grown accustomed to unexpected events over the past two years. Regardless of how well they meet the needs of their business, demand is always subject to change. To manage this, the hybrid cloud offering gives IT pioneers the flexibility to easily react to unpredictable spikes in demand. For example, public clouds can offer additional capacity in the short term, whilst on-premises data centres can be used to store long-term fixed data. Enterprises can utilise this combination of offerings to optimise the versatility of their cloud framework, whilst keeping access costs to a minimum or exceeding their existing capacity.

Maximised data security

Hybrid cloud allows IT managers much greater control over their data. Private cloud is the ideal model for storing highly sensitive data, whilst public cloud can be used when handling less delicate data. The combination of these two offerings enables companies to lower their operation costs without comprising the protection of their data. The centralised management system of a hybrid solution enables solid technical security measures such as encryption, access control, automation, orchestration, and endpoint protection to be implemented easily, resulting in a safer and more protected data flow.

Compliance is critical

Data regulation is an evolving landscape, and it is expected to become even more complex as cyber security and privacy become more prominent priorities for global leaders and regulators in the coming years.

In determining the right cloud solution for their business, enterprise leaders should focus especially on the issue of data sovereignty. The concept of data sovereignty dictates that digital data should be governed by the laws within the nation it was collected or created. This principle applies not only to EU countries, but also to businesses that gather, store or process data from EU-based organisations. Users of the public cloud model can expect to face a complicated set of compliance rules and regulations, due to the high levels of control that this type of solution demands over data. With companies having to sacrifice a certain degree of management over their data, combined with a lack of transparency from most public cloud vendors, it can often be challenging to locate data and determine how it is stored.

In contrast, hybrid offerings allow complete visibility, as IT leaders are able to maintain their own storage and networking infrastructure whilst storing data in a private cloud. Moreover, adopting a hybrid cloud solution can help organisations to achieve total compliance with regional and industry standards, whilst simultaneously generating evidence that can help report and audit their performance with confidence.

Given the rapid growth in demand over the last few years, it’s unsurprising that data management challenges are expected to rise in 2022 and beyond. As opposed to using public cloud solutions alone, businesses that start to embrace a bespoke hybrid cloud offering will be better equipped to respond to these fluctuating changes in demand whilst still ensuring continuous innovation as well as compliance and protection of consumer data.