As enterprises join the race to the cloud, determining the optimal cloud strategy for individualized cases should be the most critical step in deployment. Efforts to bring clarity and to simplify that somewhat complex decision-making process is evident in the myriad of partnerships between companies that were formally competitors - IBM, Red Hat, Rackspace, Switch, HPE and more. Hybrid cloud brings tremendous opportunity, but as companies look to leverage a hybrid cloud strategy, they are faced with endless configuration options. Many businesses simply don’t have the resources or time to evaluate what strategy is the best fit for their needs.
The drivers for adopting public, private, hybrid and multi-cloud strategies all point to streamlining operations, agility, responsive networks and infrastructure positioned to take advantage of pending technology innovations. A majority of companies selecting strategies outside of public cloud trace their decision back to security concerns, leading to an explosion of hybrid cloud adoption that allows enterprises to realize the benefit of both private and public cloud connections. According to a research by Pierre Audoin Consultants, on average, the typical multi-cloud environment run by the organizations surveyed uses 58 percent private cloud resources and 42 percent public cloud. The consultant firm said that in two years’ time, it expects to see a modest uplift in public cloud (44 percent), leaving private cloud with a 56 percent share.
As companies ramp up their use of public internet as a part of their cloud strategy, so will the pressure and demand on providers to deliver secure public connections. The good news is, despite the reputation the public internet may have, it is not the security quagmire it’s perceived to be. In fact, the public internet holds the potential to become a thriving tech engine that provides lower-cost alternative connectivity services for enterprises looking to balance OPEX and CAPEX.
Network providers are also looking for ways to optimize the network as the amount of business-critical traffic routed globally via public networks continues to explode. With the quick variation of traffic volumes, maintaining scalability of the network puts tough requirements on operators. By implementing a cloud strategy, operators can easily provide the necessary scalability to keep up with varying network traffic. Without the ability to scale in the past, providers had to lock in every customer to 3-5-year contracts. Scalability offers connectivity freedom for both providers and customers.
Leading the pack of potential solutions is SD-WAN, which is transforming the internet backbone to deliver much more flexible solutions to QoS and security compared to previous MPLS solutions. With SD-WAN offering network connectivity in the cloud, it also eliminates the need for traditional hardware offering both CAPEX and OPEX savings.
To clarify, that does not mean that MPLS is a thing of the past. Even as networks continue to adopt SD-WAN and utilize cloud strategies, some enterprises will find that their current infrastructure will support broadband networks and may pursue a more methodical adoption of SD-WAN, using the solutions collaboratively. However, when mixing and matching between MPLS, public internet and any other connectivity to form to your SD-WAN solution, security should be top of mind. Once you have selected the clouds you want to work with, you may have different requirements on the applications you will run in that cloud. Each application may need a tailor-made security solution - for instance, individual policies for how that specific traffic can be routed. Identifying the best way to meet each solution’s individual security needs without breaking the budget must be considered.
The same goes for enterprises determining their optimal cloud strategy - some applications may live best in the public cloud, while security and compliance may demand private housing for certain industries and applications that work with highly confidential or regulated information. In seeking the right cloud platform approach, companies are restructuring their networks around large colocation hubs where they can take advantage of competitively priced high-performance transport services and on-ramps to public cloud as well as private data centers (Remember all those partnerships we talked about at the start of this article?). What’s attractive about hybrid cloud and multi-cloud solutions is that they empower companies to get the best of both cloud and customized connectivity solutions not only for the business as a whole, but individual departments and functions within their business.
As the cloud continues to become an IT standard, and enterprise applications are hosted in the cloud or their own data centers, the need for a network that can reliably support both approaches is imperative.
As all options for connectivity are actually good options, it doesn’t mean that cloud strategies are one size fits all. Enterprises and carriers will face a static environment by not evaluating cloud and exactly what it means for them individually, and combined, as workflows continuously become more complex. Whether utilizing public, private or blended solutions, uninterrupted, high-bandwidth and low-latency services should not be compromised as enterprises look to stay connected to everything and everyone.
With overwhelming configurations, providers and businesses needs to consider, determining the appropriate cloud strategy should not be a decision taken lightly or made without appropriate guidance and insight. The key to success in exploring the variety of custom configurations on the market is learning about the options available, leaning on your trusted partners and carriers for education and customization, and taking your time to make the right decision for your business.
