centre of attention
But before jumping head first into hybrid cloud , enterprises must consider the reasons for doing so . It ’ s vital to map out the implications of the move , the types of workloads it will be used for and the business outcomes that can be achieved before embarking on the hybrid journey . The move towards hybrid cloud makes the integrity of data and services a major priority for enterprises . It will therefore be important to get the right mix of onpremise and various as-a-service offerings , to ensure data is always available and synchronised across multiple platforms .
Guarantee data availability The rising demand for cloud is ultimately being fuelled by businesses wanting to embrace the digital transformation process . The modern enterprise needs to be founded on key technologies provided by virtualisation , modern storage systems and cloud technologies to be fully transformative . This puts strain on the availability of data and information , as it involves updating legacy systems and investing time and money .
It is therefore critical that availability is put at the forefront of any digital transformation or hybrid cloud strategy . This will ensure that when applications and workloads are being moved across various infrastructures there ’ s a back up and disaster recovery plan in place to guarantee that downtime is not an issue .
However , our research finds that the majority of businesses are struggling to achieve this . The Veeam 2016 Availability Report found that , despite investing in their data centres , 82 per cent of businesses admit suffering an availability gap between how fast they can recover applications and how fast they need applications to be recovered . They are therefore unable to meet end users ’ requirements for an always-on business .
The growth in data is already high but it ’ s going to reach exponential rates that will put even greater strain on legacy IT systems . This means that the need for hybrid cloud approach is more important than ever to deliver on customers ’ increasingly demanding expectations .
Time to put hybrid into action While there ’ s plenty of talk about the hybrid opportunity , there still aren ’ t enough enterprises tapping into the lower cost and flexibility benefits of the public cloud . There remains an assumption that data must be kept on-premise due to perceived security issues but , as attitudes change , enterprises must look to go beyond simple application testing in the public cloud environment .
Hybrid cloud needs to be used in a way that benefits the individual organisation , and its workloads . For example , it ’ s particularly beneficial to a university as it can choose to move some workloads to the public cloud at particularly busy times during the year , such as A-Level results day and clearing when they have to deal with a vast influx of data that its on-premise setup may not be able to handle .
It is no longer acceptable for downtime to affect any service and , while the next few years will bring plenty of uncertainties , it ’ s guaranteed that the importance of data availability – anywhere , anytime – will only increase . Enterprises must have a clear cloud strategy in place before they fully invest in cloud infrastructure . At the core of this is ensuring data and information is available at all times .