IT experts explain how to leverage the power of hybrid cloud

A series of seismic global events have highlighted the importance of fully leveraging the extraordinary technological innovations of our times. Whether it’s the pandemic stressing supply chains or the war in Ukraine triggering an energy crisis, firms need to bring their technology A-game – now more than ever – if they are to survive and thrive.

A key way to unlock maximum business potential is through the power of a hybrid cloud. We asked IT industry leaders the steps they are taking to overcome complexity, soaring costs and lingering legacy systems to fully leverage their hybrid cloud infrastructure.

Here in frank detail, they discuss their solutions. Nataliya Nekrasova, @Nataliya Nekrasova, CEO & Founder of Approval Studio, an online proofing solution for the creative industries, neatly summed up the challenge IT leaders must overcome.

She said: “We are facing continued pressure to improve business agility, deliver more innovation and increase productivity, while also working on tight budgets and, in many cases, reduced costs. For us, the hybrid cloud holds the key to successfully balancing these, sometimes conflicting, demands and it’s a vital step on the pathway to digital transformation. Holding critical infrastructure in an on-premise data centre, we are able to quickly add complex premium features and instantly react to peak loads. When planning future infrastructure, however, hybrid сlouds are the best solution for companies like ours, not to say - the most cost-effective.”

One of the major value drivers of hybrid cloud is how it can help centralise and rationalise IT infrastructure, reducing complexity and delivering significant economies of scale. Isaac Sacolick, @nyike, President of the digital transformation consultancy StarCIO and author of Digital Trailblazer, explained that the key to success is to “reduce the number of infrastructure stacks to include one private cloud using hyper-converged, one or maybe two public clouds, and edge computing where needed.”

Sacolick added: “The business value is achieved by reducing the time to deploy applications and selecting an app's optimal infrastructure option for cost, performance, and compliance factors. IT benefits by managing fewer and more simplified infrastructure stacks, reducing the necessary tech skills to support cloud infrastructure, and freeing up time to automate more of the operations.” Alex Farr, @AlexFarr_IT, Chief Technology Officer at professional and financial services firm Christie Group, said that with the right partner, a hybrid cloud can deliver both exceptional cost governance and compelling savings. However, financial directors (FDs) may be unfamiliar with the cost structure and long-term value proposition of hybrid cloud and may need guidance.

“One of the barriers I had previously to adopting hybrid cloud was educating the business,” said Farr. “Our FD preferred to invest in assets that could be depreciated over time, whereas we were looking at variable monthly costs. The hybrid cloud set-up aligned with very transparent costs with a mix of CAPEX and OPEX that satisfied everyone concerned.”

Once the finance function understands and supports the switch, Farr said a hybrid cloud strategy can enable an enterprise to innovate and be significantly more agile.

“I took the stance that a hybrid cloud would provide us with a lot more agility, we could flex depending on the needs of our clients,” said Farr. “Our provider was able to offer us a hybrid solution which was a mix of physical tin, hosted at their data centre, with the ability to burst into the cloud as demand or projects dictated. Our neutral stance when it came to cloud providers gave us the flexibility to move between cloud providers – for example, Google and Microsoft – depending on the service we were trying to access or provide.

**“**Hybrid cloud has also allowed us to dip our toe into areas we weren’t previously able to. The team would be able to learn new skills that would support them now and, in the future, and most importantly, free them up from some of the administrative day-to-day tasks to focus on projects and innovation.” According to technology integration specialist Steve Prentice, @cloudtweaksteve, the need for education extends beyond financial directors.

He said: “The enterprises that I have noticed as having best overcome the adoption challenge are those that took the time and invested the resources in education across all sectors of the organization, including senior management, as well as departments not directly associated with IT.

“It is vital to have an intellectual understanding of the types of data being sent to the cloud, the division between cloud(s) and on-prem, as well as security, remote work, and vendor issues.”

Knowledge, expertise, and experience are also key factors in hybrid cloud success for Gene Delibero, @GeneDeLibero, Chief Strategy Officer at marketing transformation firm GeekHive.com.

He said: “Hybrid, distributed cloud environments present several challenges, notably increased security, and management complexity. Investing purposefully in the right resources with skills and experience in the hybrid cloud helps us harness the power and benefits of the hybrid cloud and improve time to market and time to value. This enables speed as a competitive advantage and allows us to create more profitable customer experiences.” For Will Kelly, @willkelly, a writer and analyst focused on the cloud and DevOps, education is not enough. IT teams across the organisation also need to work closely together if the maximum value is to be achieved from hybrid cloud migration.

“Successful hybrid cloud adoption depends on collaboration and attention to detail amongst your teams. First, a hybrid cloud needs to become part of your cloud migration planning and processes with the same level of attention as migrating to the public cloud. Your security and ops teams must also work together to redefine their operating and security models, especially considering the shared responsibility model. Both teams should be asking a lot of questions of the other to get to the heart of the changes that need to happen.”

Education and collaboration may be key to hybrid cloud success, but optimum outcomes can only be achieved if best practice is embedded at the departmental level. This is the opinion shared by Frank Cutitta, @fcutitta, CEO & Founder of HealthTech Decisions Lab, a consultancy specialising in the personas and neuroscience of healthcare technology purchases.

Cuititta said the cultural challenges to hybrid cloud migration may be bigger than the technological challenges, given the fact that divisions within an enterprise often have totally different attitudes to data democratisation and governance.

He said: “I just heard the famous chess star Gary Kasparov say that autonomous units always have an advantage over centralised units. I think this clearly applies to deploying hybrid cloud infrastructure to unlock business potential. The greatest potential might actually be at the unit or department level with scaling coming after smaller cloud transformation successes and best practices are realised. This might eventually evolve into a ‘community cloud’ approach’.”

To learn more about leveraging the power of the hybrid cloud, please visit the Nutanix website.