By Audrey Rasmussen, Rich Ptak and Bill Moran
Looking at Hybrid Cloud from a Different Perspective
The definition of hybrid cloud
is evolving as the cloud market progresses and the transition to hybrid cloud continues.
The emergence of hybrid cloud brings with it a multitude of new delivery
models, services, technologies and more. This wealth of options provides potential
hybrid cloud customers with lots of choices. But, it can also be confusing,
which elevates the need for relevant detailed definitions.
Business requirements are a key
driver for adopting cloud computing. Yet, most hybrid cloud definitions primarily
focus on technical descriptions. A technical definition is appropriate and
useful for cloud implementers and technical teams. However, it falls short at clarifying
hybrid cloud to potential business users.
For example, defining a “jet
plane” by describing the engine and overall plane design is a valid approach.
However, it misses the important business impact of jet planes in revolutionizing
commercial air travel. Similarly,
defining hybrid cloud in strictly IT terms neglects the economic value and business
implications of adopting it.
This is particularly important
because unless business users understand the value and potential the hybrid
cloud delivers, they are unlikely to reap optimal benefits from it. Consequently,
their support for IT’s hybrid cloud efforts may be unenthusiastic.
Defining the hybrid cloud is
complicated because each implementation is unique, as it fulfills specific business
requirements. Since business needs drive adoption, business users must
understand what a hybrid cloud can offer and mean to them. This knowledge can transform
how business stakeholders innovate and design new business services. In order
to reach both business consumers and technical implementers, we believe a
broader definition of hybrid cloud is necessary.
We begin with our explanation
of hybrid cloud for business cloud consumers.
The Aerial View of Hybrid Cloud: Business View
Some business staffs may think that only the technical IT team
needs to understand cloud computing. Although hybrid clouds are enabling
technologies, it is equally important for business leaders to understand how they
can fundamentally impact and/or change business models and operations. Why? Because
realizing the hybrid clouds’ full advantage requires a new, expanded way of
thinking about the business and the possibilities.
Cloud computing enables an
organization to extend their capabilities beyond the “walls” of their company
and frequently beyond the expertise within their company. For example,
traditionally, computers and information technology were company owned and
resided in corporate data centers. Companies now have the option to pay service
providers to use remote computer resources on-demand. Greatly expanded resources
become available within minutes or hours, something not always possible in
corporate data centers.
Now, cloud computing has and
will continue to evolve as the variety of cloud services explodes beyond
today’s technology and business resource limits. Diverse cloud service
offerings run the gamut from business applications, industry specific data (for
example, medical data), cloud development platforms, advanced analytics, video
processing, weather data, Twitter data and much more. Today, businesses are
able to access diverse services. The result is extending their capabilities far
beyond the data residing within their company and the expertise of their
employees. It eliminates in-house limitations on capabilities, making possible
what is impossible to do in-house, and more. It provides businesses with vast opportunities
to innovate creatively, beyond what they can accomplish within the constraints
of their companies’ internal capabilities. Business leaders need to understand
that this is what hybrid cloud can deliver.
An example is helpful in
illustrating the creation of a new business service using a variety of hybrid cloud
services. Imagine a car insurer’s customer facing application uses customer policy
data (residing on an internal cloud) to gather vehicle coverage. The
application uses traffic information (from Cloud service provider A) to warn
the customer of an accident just ahead of their location, a potential traffic
hazard or slowing freeway traffic. The application also uses weather data (from
Cloud service provider B) to warn customers that they are heading directly into
potential hail, tornado or adverse weather conditions. A map service (from
Cloud service provider C) provides alternative directions avoiding the hazard.
In similar ways, businesses of
all kinds are able to compose innovative business services that utilize
internal and external cloud services. This changes how business leaders think
about innovating and developing business services. Just as botanists create a
new hybrid plant by selecting and combining the best plant characteristics,
business leaders can create new, innovative hybrid cloud-based services by
selecting among the best available services.
A hybrid cloud makes available
resources where ownership is not feasible, justified or possible. This can be true
for reasons related to operations, cost, or other reasons. It makes
collaboration possible without risking production environments. Hybrid cloud
can lower the cost of operations, development, sales, marketing, research and
development. It opens up otherwise unavailable opportunities by making it
possible to use capabilities on a temporary or exceptional basis. It can allow
global market access without a global presence. A hybrid cloud allows access to
resources and capacity as and when they are needed from public or community clouds
that can generally provide services at lower cost than private infrastructure.
Although the basic definition
of hybrid cloud sounds simple, there are technical issues that IT teams must
attend to behind the scenes in order to implement it, while keeping it simple
and seamless. A hybrid cloud requires business leaders and IT to work as a
team.
The Ground Level View of Hybrid Cloud: Technical View
As mentioned, many technical
descriptions of hybrid cloud are already available. There exists little need
for extensive additional discussion here.
For a very simple working
definition, we describe a hybrid cloud as being an environment that connects at
least two independent cloud services from whatever source. It can consist of public
cloud services, private cloud services or 3rd party delivered
private cloud services in any combination. Public cloud services also have many
“flavors”, for example they may be on- or off-premise, include multiple
enterprises (e.g. a community) with access to the same resources, or have
co-resident users working in ‘private’ spaces. Private cloud services are
enterprise owned/controlled cloud services whose access are controlled by the
enterprise or enterprise-authorized entity. An additional major benefit of
hybrid cloud is to protect a company’s current investments in infrastructure.
Summary
At times, an enterprise needs
access to services or capabilities where ownership isn’t necessary or is too
expensive. The need may be operational, (e.g. a need to use advanced analytics),
or informational, (e.g. access to weather or medical data.) It can be driven by
IT or by business concerns. In short, the enterprise requires temporary and/or
shared access to IT capacity (compute, storage, network, services, etc.) or
functionality it doesn’t own. Hybrid cloud is a utility model which has the
potential to more economically and efficiently provide access to a range of
products, services and resources on a pay-as-you go basis. Between the rapid
innovation of infrastructure and the creativity of marketers, the variety of cloud
services offered and number of definitions will continue to expand.
From a business perspective, it
puts assets, resources and expertise at the disposal of the enterprise that it
otherwise would not have. It allows the enterprise to leverage these assets in creative
and innovative ways with manageable financial expense and economic risk. For
business staff, it loosens restrictions on what can be accomplished as the
enterprise transforms itself to effectively compete in a digitized world.
Since hybrid cloud is the
collective composition of multiple cloud services that spans across computing
domains, it requires management and coordination of service activities from both
in-house and service provider sources. The challenge for IT lies in effectively
managing across these hybrid cloud service compositions seamlessly, while
delivering what the business needs, in the time frame they need it at the best
possible cost point.
Finally, for both IT and
enterprise staffs the hybrid cloud provides the opportunity to work more
closely together to define and achieve aggressive, innovative enterprise goals
in an economic, effective, innovative manner.
