Hybrid cloud infrastructures: has the pandemic forced our hand?
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge effect on the world as we know it. Aside from the obvious public health issues, we’re also living through its impact on the world of business.
This has been unchartered territory for us all. Businesses have had to do what they can to keep functioning. Which has meant adapting – and quickly.
Entire workforces have had to embrace working from home. And whilst for many employees it’s as simple as installing a new piece of software on their laptop, for many enterprises, whole new strategies have had to be implemented. And with time of the essence, often with very little planning or research.
What those businesses have found is that their need to use public cloud networks has proved to be limiting. Network bottlenecks have been common. Latency issues for those furthest away from servers. Security problems and so on.
With the benefit of hindsight – which admittedly during a pandemic is the unlikeliest of luxuries – a hybrid cloud solution would have far better suited.
It’s a model that negates the cost of data transfer increasing as more data is created. A model that offloads application, data and network services, enabling a distributed approach. A model that’s a speciality for BT and Dell Technologies.
Hybrid cloud solutions are the best of both worlds. Their dedicated private cloud approach enables localised cloud-like services to return to the business without worrying about infrastructure or platform management. Freeing up IT to progress revenue generating innovation without compromising on cost control. And with secure dedicated private cloud stacks close to where data is created.
With customers being free to push forward with enterprise class hybrid cloud services that can be delivered and maintained to a personal level they’re happy with, they can plan for the future. This is technology that accelerates the innovation needed to achieve sustained growth and gain a competitive edge.
So, perhaps the ongoing pandemic could actually have forced the hand of business enterprises. There’s now a growing realisation that purely public cloud networks will only stretch so far.
The future is one of adaptability. Improved control of scalability as well as security and risk.
Hybrid cloud strategies enable agility, pure and simple. And if there’s one good thing to come out of this global situation we’re all facing, it’s the need to be open to change.