A Path to Hybrid Cloud

May 31, 2018 / G C Network / Comments Off

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SOA-R!! Another Hit !!

By G C Network | October 9, 2008

Yesterday’s SOA-R event coverage by TECH Bisnow Washington was yet another indication that cloud computing is real in the Federal space. Thanks goes to Mr. Dave Stegon from Bisnow on Business and Pauline Healy from Apptis. Thanks…

World Summit of Cloud Computing, December 1-2, 2008, Wohl Centre, Ramat Gan, Israel

By G C Network | October 8, 2008

I am proud to announce that I’ve been invited to speak at the “World Summit of Cloud Computing“, December 1-2, 2008, at the Wohl Centre in Ramat Gan, Israel. As…

MIT Survey: What A Response !!

By G C Network | October 7, 2008

We’ve been quite surprised by the number of survey responses we’ve received. THANK YOU !! That subset of the cloud computing community interested in national security and public sector applications…

Cloud Auction Business Model

By G C Network | October 3, 2008

The other day I talked about how cloud computing could change the government’s budgeting process. Well what about this! Last week, Google filed a patent application that describes a system…

Oracle: To Cloud or Not To Cloud …

By G C Network | October 2, 2008

First Oracle’s Larry Ellison bashes cloud computing as nothing but hype and then his company announces that it will let customers run Oracle 10g and 11g databases and its Fusion…

Capacity planning in a cloud environment

By G C Network | October 1, 2008

In her post “Cloud computing killed the capacity star“, Ivanka Menken brings up some good points. Just think what changes this could bring to the government budgeting process. The trends…

Cloud Databases

By G C Network | September 30, 2008

Joab Jackson, in his “Cloud computing leaving relational databases behind” article, makes some pretty interesting points on the incompatibility of relational databases with cloud-based infrastructures. He first list the various…

The 6 layers of the Cloud Computing Stack

By G C Network | September 29, 2008

From Sam Johnston’s Taxonomy post Clients (examples) are computer hardware and/or computer software which rely on The Cloud for application delivery, or which is specifically designed for delivery of cloud…

Thank You KMI Media Group

By G C Network | September 26, 2008

In this month’s Editor’s Perspective, Mr. Harrison Donnelly announced the new KMI Media Group collaborative effort. Military Information Technology will be using the blogosphere to get their government and industry…

VMware, Cisco and the Virtual Datacenter

By G C Network | September 26, 2008

Last week, VMware and Cisco announced their latest collaboration for the virtual datacenter of the future. The Cisco Nexus® 1000V distributed virtual software switch is expected to be an integrated…

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Cloud computing is now an operational reality across every industry. Organizations that fail to leverage this economic, operational and technology consumption model are merely consigning themselves to irrelevance. The rapid acceleration of cloud adoption has now ignited a push for the Hybrid Cloud/Hybrid IT model in which enterprises simultaneously consumes information technology services from private clouds, public clouds, community clouds and traditional data center sources. While most see this as a reasonable evolutionary path, others see staying with a single provider or a slow, gradual transition as a more prudent path. I strongly disagree with the latter.

A casual observation of the information technology marketplace reveals that data is continuing to grow at an exponential pace. We have also moved from the management of structured data, through joint analysis of structured and unstructured data into an environment where real-time analysis and reporting of streaming data is essential. We are also in an environment of stricter data management regulations and national data sovereignty laws that, if violated, introduce the possibility of punishing remedies and fines. This rapid progression has also driven an exponential increase in required (and desired) information technology services. Cloud service providers meet this need through the innovative creation and deployment of API accessible, immediately consumable, data manipulation services. Enterprise IT organizations have shown themselves to be incapable of matching the blistering increase in number and breadth of these broader marketplace services. It’s not cost-effective or even desirable for them to even try.

Business owners, on the other hand, see these new services as necessary competitive tools. They can’t wait for the required internal governance processes or IT investment decisions. This tension has been the cause of internal conflict between IT and business and also the underlying cause of Shadow IT, a tendency to stealthily procure and use cloud services without internal IT knowledge or approval. The organizational business goal must be accomplished and to meet this imperative, enterprise IT must drive a radical shift from legacy ideas and culture towards embracing the Hybrid Cloud/Hybrid IT model.

Enterprise IT management must face reality. The development and rapid execution of a business supportive IT strategy require a meaningful conversation between IT and business leaders on targeted new business opportunities and any associated differentiating business strategies. IT leadership must then select the appropriate IT service mix and sources for each necessary business process. This multi-vendor, multi-source selection process should point to the needed Hybrid Cloud/Hybrid IT target end state. The path towards realizing that target should go through at least two pilot processes. One through which success delivers IT operational efficiency and savings and a second that promises new revenue streams for the business. Ideally executed in parallel, this approach will:

Train and educate your IT team on the cloud model and required business processes;
Build much-neededrapport and collaboration between the business team and IT team;
Accelerate attainment of the Hybrid Cloud/Hybrid IT target end state; and
Effectively move the organization down the necessary digital transformation path.

Enterprises that have been successful in completing this transformative process include:

CarMax– a Fortune® 500 company with more than 175 stores across the US and over 6 million cars sold
IHG – one of the world’s leading hotel companies, with more than 375,000 people working across almost 100 countries to deliver True Hospitality for everyone; and
Smithfield Foods – the world’s largest pork processor and hog producer, committed to providing good food in a responsible way.

In completing their path to hybrid cloud, Smithfield Foods realized:

Application response time drop from 600ms to 70 ms;
No unplanned IT outages;
Increased visibility into business key performance indicators;
A transition from a reactive to a predictive decision making culture;
A 60% reduction in required IT resources; and
The desired enablement of business innovation.

To learn more about starting your company’s path towards the hybrid cloud, take a look at the Microsoft Office Modern Workplace episode on Hybrid Cloud. In it, Corporate Vice President of Azure Marketing at Microsoft, Julia White, and Tim Crawford from AVOA address how organizations can build the right cloud strategy for the business and its impact on digital transformation.

This post was sponsored by Microsoft.