WHY IS STILL SO HARD?4 keys to unlock the future of IT

The use of hybrid cloud is skyrocketing among

companies in every industry.

RightScale’s 2016 State of the Cloud Report found that 71 percent of respondents have gone

hybrid – compared to 58 percent from last year.

95% of Respondents Are Using Cloud

18%Public cloudonly

Private cloudonly

Public = 89% Private = 77%Source: RightScale 2016 State of the Cloud Report

Hybrid71% 6%

Leveraging hybrid cloud is the top priority for enterprise IT in 2016, according to RightScale.

Top Priority for Enterprise Central IT

Public and private are equal priority

leveragehybrid cloud

using public cloud

using a hostedprivate cloud

building aprivate cloud

29%

27%23%

10%

10%

Source: RightScale 2016 State of the Cloud Report

Meanwhile, the total amount of both private and public cloud

users continues to grow.

77 percent of users plan to tap into private clouds this year, compared to 63 percent in 2015.

In the midst of this cloud boom, you’d think the path to cloud would be paved and clear. However, that’s not the case.

on-premises

Today’s hybrid model is fragmented. Worse, every company has a

different definition of “hybrid.”

Today’s infrastructure is complex, and many combinations of platforms and

hybrid strategy.

Many platforms don’t deliver the simplicity that hybrid cloud adopters expect.

Today’s Fragmented Hybrid Model

ONPREMISES

OFFPREMISES

ENTERPRISEDATA CENTER

PRIVATECLOUD

MANAGEDCLOUD

PUBLICCLOUD

Enterprise data behaves differently on every platform – and must be carefully managed

to preserve integrity and security.

Whether your company started calling its IT plan “hybrid” when

it shut down its secondary data center or moved to Office 365, you’re likely

reaching for a common industry goal:

access data stored in the cloud and third-party services as easily as if it lived on-premises.

There are many ways to work toward this goal, including using edge networks and managed storage-as-a-service solutions.

• Access• Security• Performance• Mobility

However, in any situation, four common data factors can make or break hybrid success:

Each factor must be guaranteed for data access,

no matter where that data lives.

hardware and software vendors can no longer afford to ignore cloud service offerings.

As noted by Mark May for SearchCloudStorage,

New cloud users are coming on board daily, and the definition of hybrid cloud – even

the cloud itself – is likely to keep changing.

To keep up, your organization needs to assess data access needs for every app, and lay out a timeline that guides your move to the cloud.

1. Determine which apps should move to the cloud – today, in six months and in a year.

2. Identify all costs for cloud expansion: access fees, infrastructure and management.

3. Support the move with the right team and a comprehensive hybrid strategy.

To execute this plan, the following steps are critical:

As a result, your enterprise can keep pace with IT trends and

pave the way toward a hybrid future.

many businesses end up transitioning to the cloud much

faster than they initially planned.

Datamation contributor Christine Taylor explains: once they embark on a hybrid strategy,

After all, once the cloud takes root, its use grows quickly.

Find out how you can makehybrid cloud a reality.

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