Does Cloud really exists? Or is it just someone else's computer?

Firstly, I know that Cloud exists, don't worry, the lock-down didn't affect me that much! :)

But behind the headline, I am always curious to dig into the reasons that make us go one way or the other, or even thinking that there is only one way to go, when regards to IT Infrastructure.

For those that comes from IT academic background, you have certainly read this article from Nicholas Carr, the famous “IT Doesn’t Matter”, published by Harvard Business magazine in 2003, if I am not wrong.

One of the ideas behind this article was to show how IT lost the value for the business becoming a simple commodity and not a add value entity.

Since that year, we have experienced a data flooding like no other without precedents in history, we have built systems that allows us to dive into these oceans of data and extract knowledge.

It doesn’t stop there, we have learned that without skills (Data Scientists) and process, we will not get the benefits that Artificial Intelligence can bring.

All that to say that things are different now, the maturity of Infrastructure systems are way beyond we could ever imagine 20 years ago. One very good example of a maturity of understanding is that we used to think that Cloud is a physical place. Nowadays we understand Cloud as a capability.

And as enterprise IT readily embraces public cloud technologies, on-premises and private cloud usage continues to grow. On-premises is not going away as a critical part of IT infrastructure strategy; instead, organizations are meshing together various types of IT infrastructure to meet their needs. Organizations that can bring together on-premises with public cloud strategically will be best positioned for operational excellence.

In 2019, IBM commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate how organizations develop and implement their IT infrastructure strategies. Forrester conducted an online survey of 350 global enterprise IT decision makers across industries to explore this topic. We found that organizations are mixing and matching technologies across public cloud, hosted private cloud, and on-premises infrastructure based on business requirements.

 Some key findings of this study:

• On-premises infrastructure is key to enterprise hybrid cloud strategy. Enterprises are making strategic decisions about what types of IT infrastructure to use for which purposes — and on premises continues to play a key role, with 90% of IT decision makers agreeing that on-premises infrastructure is a critical part of their hybrid cloud strategies.
• IT decisions makers select the right IT infrastructure strategy according to the job to be done. Technology professionals consider workload, security needs, and time-to-value when designing IT infrastructure strategies. When it comes to workloads, IT decision makers anticipate that more than half of mission-critical workloads and 47% of data-intensive workloads will be run either on-premises or in an internal private cloud in two years.
• The push to public cloud doesn’t mean organizations have stopped investing in on-premises. The majority of IT decision makers surveyed expect their companies’ funding for public cloud to grow over the next 24 months. At the same time, more than eight out of 10 respondents predict their organizations will increase investment in IT infrastructure outside of public cloud.
• Tapping the brakes on refreshes and upgrades can come at a cost. Delays in IT infrastructure refreshes and upgrades expose enterprises to expensive vulnerabilities and can negatively impact customer experience. Security vulnerabilities, software compatibility issues, and an inability to meet customer expectations as a result of delays in infrastructure refreshes are top concerns for IT decision makers.

As infrastructure budget shrinks every year, the organizations are more likely to keep old systems running for more years, extracting the maximum TCO reduction as possible. Nothing wrong with that, apart from the fact that going this path, but as a result, IT decision makers struggle with a variety of cost and strategy challenges following a delay in infrastructure refreshes and upgrades, including:

• Security vulnerabilities;
• Inability to meet increased customer and employee expectations
• Compatibility restrictions
• Decreased market competitiveness
• Diminished performance and uptime
• Potential raise of cost in maintaining the legacy systems.

Organizations supplement cloud strategy with on-premises infrastructure to use the right tool for the job. On-premises infrastructure continues to be foundational, with 90% of respondents agreeing that it is a critical part of a hybrid cloud strategy. 

The survey revealed that key considerations for infrastructure decisions include

• Type of workload. Organizations are increasing the percentage of mission-critical workloads that are run in public cloud and internal private cloud at comparable rates. At the same time, they expect to increase data-intensive workloads that are run in hosted private cloud environments. Organizations also leverage on-premises for improved application or infrastructure performance, which lands in the top three reasons organizations leverage on-premises resources for some workloads.
• Compliance and security. Greater assurance for compliance is the No. 1 reason for using on-premises resources for select workloads. According to respondents, failure to meet security needs is the top reason for maintaining infrastructure outside of a public cloud platform. Hosted private cloud offers the benefits of traditional on premises infrastructure in a secure, private setting, while also allowing organizations to take advantage of cost savings and flexibility.
• Cost and time-to-value. Organizations ranked avoiding time intensive budget approvals and realizing faster productivity with less process as top reasons to leverage on-premises resources. This need is particularly driving private cloud investment, with most viewing internal private cloud as a developer environment. These findings suggest that organizations use on-premises and private cloud to side-step bureaucratic processes and kick-start development efforts.

Moving on

 In a world where the focus centers on cloud, it is easy to make the mistake of moving application workloads without a clear rationale for what benefits migration will achieve. Our survey uncovered evidence of this pressure to shift to cloud, as well as the reality that many organizations are intentionally and strategically leveraging a hybrid cloud strategy driven by diverse business and technology requirements.

Forrester’s in-depth survey of 350 global IT decision makers about IT infrastructure yielded several important recommendations:

• Invest in cloud using a strategy that aligns to your context. First, determine whether you are seeking gains at the application level or the data center level. Then, create your own sourcing framework with factors that may include cloud readiness, location challenges, compliance requirements, data types, need for additional support, and expected lifetime, among other factors. Hedge against cloud vendor lock-in by designing for multicloud deployment and architectures wherever possible.
• Don’t let cloud obsession stop other infrastructure investments. The perception that infrastructure investment outside the public cloud has stopped is false. Yet as an infrastructure professional, it feels like budgets are under attack. The majority of IT leaders continue to invest.
• Beware of delaying investment. Those that have delayed or stopped investment have experienced security vulnerabilities, software compatibility issues, and an inability to meet customer expectations. Learn from your peers and advocate for updates and upgrades.
• Build an irrefutable business case. Our survey found that organizations are mostly likely to use higher performance as a proof point to justify new investment (see Figure 8). Performance is especially critical since it has significant impact on customer experience (CX) and brand perception. Executives that can’t commit to complete refreshes can leverage subscription-based infrastructure refresh options to provide a more flexible future if their strategy changes.
• Explore alternative environments for data-intensive workloads. Public cloud serves many workload types, but some use cases are extraordinarily expensive or introduce too great a risk surface. Data-intensive workloads are a great example of hybrid cloud strategies looking to optimize across all IT infrastructure options and ensure cost efficiency.

As you might know, IBM has on prem solutions, cloud solutions in many flavours: public, private and hybrid - so in case you want to study which “Cloud” is a perfect fit for you organization strategy, flick me a message, I am happy to assist you on this journey, or visit https://www.ibm.com/au-en/it-infrastructure/storage.

References:

https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/au-en/resources/hybrid-multicloud-infrastructure-strategy/#/key-finding-4/

https://hbr.org/2003/05/it-doesnt-matter