Is your private cloud feeling lonely? It's time to introduce it to a friend: the public cloud!

Initially, many believed that enterprise workloads would remain on-prem due to security concerns, limited features and higher costs. Others predicted that the public cloud would remain the realm of specific industries and start-ups. As hyperscalers worked around the clock to address the concerns of enterprises, we saw significant acceleration in the growth of cloud over the last decade. The YoY growth however has slowed down in the last 2 x years for a variety of reasons we will not go into here.

Today, consensus is emerging that hybrid cloud is here to stay. Organizations will continue to leverage both on-prem and multiple public cloud environments to achieve the best of both worlds. To truly capitalize on hybrid cloud deployments, we must therefore bridge the gap between private and public clouds, which often operate like ships passing in the night, often meeting only at the IT service management level. Addressing challenges like data portability, integration and maintaining the developer experience can unlock their full potential. A true Hybrid Cloud is not just about using Public and Private!

Arguably hybrid cloud should be defined by the 3 Cs: Consistency in services, Consistency in user experience, and Consistency in operations. This ensures seamless transition and integration between on-prem and cloud environments, crucial for accelerating time to market for applications, maintaining operational excellence and end user satisfaction.

Although containers enhance portability between environments, dependencies on external data, AI, and network/security services often hinder true mobility. Overcoming these challenges requires innovative integration strategies and technologies. With over 15 years of cloud experience, we've found that a unified technology stack between on-prem and public cloud is essential. Tools like Azure Stack, Azure Arc, and AWS Outposts are leading the way, offering far more consistent and integrated services than ever before when paired with their respective friends i.e Azure and AWS public clouds.

While the range of consistent services between on-prem and public cloud may currently be limited, this is rapidly expanding, especially in critical and high value areas like data management, AI, and edge computing. This evolution promises to extract maximum value from future hybrid cloud investments.

We're very excited to continue our collaboration with Microsoft and AWS to integrate cutting-edge hybrid cloud solutions and deliver more value to our customers. So, if you actively looking to stop your private cloud from feeling lonely, please get in touch—we’re sure we can find it a friend!