The power of hybrid cloud solutions: The best of both worlds

In a world where maintaining market presence and competitiveness are of paramount importance, businesses that combine the flexibility of the public cloud with the efficiency of the private cloud will emerge as winners.

While public and private cloud computing has been around for almost two decades, many businesses still struggle to precisely pinpoint how to harness their benefits to accelerate the outcomes they seek. And understanding where public versus private makes sense remains elusive to many.

In contemplating the case for hybrid cloud, consider these statistics, based on a recent NTT study on cloud migration strategies involving 950 IT leaders across 13 countries:

• 93.7% of organizations agree that the cloud is critical to meeting their immediate business needs (up from 84.8% a year ago).
• Business agility – which requires business continuity, resilience, and adaptation to change – tops the organizational agenda.
• Data is central to any conversation about business agility. The ability to access and process data to make informed, real-time decisions is a core consideration when designing hybrid environments.

So, the question remains: How do you unite the worlds of public and private cloud? At NTT, we believe that success lies in thoughtful technology selection, bearing in mind both the applications running in the respective environments and the connectivity between them.

A key sticking point, of course, is cost. How do you justify large-scale technological investment in private data centers? How do you provide predictable and unrestricted access to these services while keeping your expenditure in check in scenarios where the public cloud isn’t fit for purpose?

Get back to the cloud basics

As youngsters, many of us were taught the term ‘more haste, less speed’ to impress on us the importance of not making a mess of something by rushing.

Likewise, no successful hybrid cloud migration will result from a rushed or haphazard effort. You need to carefully evaluate your requirements and desired business outcomes, as well as any barriers (such as the business context and size, legacy environments, cost, workload makeup and complexity.)

The importance of crafting a solid strategy from which to launch your hybrid cloud journey cannot be understated. The purpose of this process is to evolve not only your infrastructure but also to adapt tools, processes and even people’s attitudes to ensure the venture has its greatest chance of success.

Patience and perseverance are also key ingredients of a successful outcome. Migrating applications and infrastructures takes time. Sometimes deep customization will be required if a universal solution won’t deliver the desired end result, given the unique nature of your business, users, customers and applications.

Here, the topic of process automation deserves mention. Despite its many benefits, automation has its limits. For example, there’s no value in automating a bad process, no matter how good the technology or the environment in which it's being implemented.

Given the myriad of considerations and dependencies involved in hybrid cloud migration, it’s not surprising that many organizations engage with a specialized consulting partner to help them chart their course forward.

Such a partner can assist with the following key steps and actions:

• The design of an architecture to enable your transformation – one that guarantees quality of service operations
• Evolution, migration and maintenance of applications and infrastructures
• Identification of opportunities for cost reduction, productivity and quality gains, as well as availability and agility improvements

How can we help?

According to a study carried out by fDi Intelligence, a publication of the Financial Times and Tech Cities of the Future, Madrid is positioned as the sixth most attractive city in Europe for technology startups for both local and international entrepreneurs. It also ranks seventh in terms of performance and success in attracting foreign investment capital.

In response to these exciting opportunities, we’re launching our new Madrid 1 Data Center for hybrid solutions. Strategically located in the Európolis Business and Technology Park, this modern campus with a total of 3,600 m² of space and 6+ MW of IT load meets the most advanced requirements in terms of high availability, security, performance, connectivity and efficiency.

This data center complements our specialized consulting and managed services for cloud and hybrid platforms.

Keen to learn more about how we can help? Why not get in touch and let’s talk about your requirements. Please contact our data center experts at +49 69 7801-2110 by email to dc.emea.sales@global.ntt or via the contact form.

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