Cloud computing continues to transform the modern enterprise. Over the past few years, cloud deployments have increased exponentially both on-premise and hosted in third-party data centers. For those staying close with IT trends, it is clear that converged and hyper-converged systems are and will continue to play an important role in simplifying and accelerating the building and operating of clouds.
Naturally, organizations want to take advantage of these new opportunities and technologies, but they must first determine their own unique journeys, the current IT landscape and where the industry is headed. In 2017, there are a few key trends that will make it clear where cloud computing is headed and how enterprises will utilize it going forward.
A hybrid cloud strategy is the rule, not the exception
There are currently two main types of organizations making investments in the public cloud. The first is predominantly interested in public cloud because its internal IT infrastructure is not agile enough to meet its needs. More interesting though is the second type of organization, which considers the public cloud as part of its IT strategy, using it as an extension of its own datacenter.
These organizations understand and leverage strengths of both public and private cloud – a hybrid cloud strategy – to best benefit their business and customers. For example, the use of public cloud services allows them to spin up a project in a very short amount of time with limited complexity. However, as those new applications mature, there comes a tipping point when running them in a public cloud will be more costly than moving them on-premise. More mature organizations today already have started making this thought process part of their IT DNA. As a result, hybrid clouds will become the technology rule versus the exception.
Intelligent applications
Future challenges will not just be about the infrastructure or the best use of public and private cloud, but about the way the actual application workloads are being constructed. Today, applications that run the modern economy are still very dependent on the underlying infrastructure because the intelligence optimizing an organization’s IT environment resides directly in the IT infrastructure. While this will not completely change, in the future, part of that intelligence will also reside in the applications themselves. This will allow infrastructure and applications to determine the best use of resources based on certain parameters and policies determined by the enterprise.
This will cause software-defined infrastructures (SDI) running on-premise to achieve parity in terms of flexibility with public cloud capabilities. There will be intelligence in a layer of software that is a part of the application package, and, as an application adapts and requires more resources, it will intelligently communicate through the actual infrastructure to enable this kind of metamorphoses.
Hybrid, bidirectional applications
Additionally, as organizations begin to invest in techniques to transform applications that will power a new economy, applications will need to be hybrid in nature. Where the workloads and associated data reside will depend on many factors including performance parameters and cost; how sensitive the data is; and, whether or not it is used to interact with the organization’s customers. In many instances, this will mean that an application will have some modules residing on-premise while others will be put in the public cloud. Also, as mentioned, off- premise versus on-premise will not be set in stone from the beginning. Application workloads might need to be moved bi-directionally from one location to another over time.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there is a tremendous opportunity to leverage specific software that is written as intellectual property and used to differentiate how organizations interact with their customers. Companies that invest in new techniques to transform applications and how they are built will have that new “agility factor.” This is similar to when everybody in the late 1990s believed that putting their business on the internet was the next step. Creating intelligent and bidirectional applications is an area where companies should invest, but do so thoughtfully. Not every application can be brought into this new world all at once.
In closing, organizations need to understand where they are in their cloud journey and what they want to achieve. Just adding new shiny objects will result in problems in the future. Instead, organizations need to be smart about their approach to modernizing IT infrastructure while at the same time investing in building applications that are future-ready. They will also need to do this with the right mix of people, including staff who understands the legacy IT systems and staff who will be able to help transform and build new applications.
