Is hybrid cloud fundamental for your organisation? Tell us, readers! We write about cloud computing so often that some readers have taken to our forums to accuse us, as one put it, of flag waving for "cloud, cloud, cloud, nothing but cloud and how good it supposedly is." The reader would like us to expand our horizons to cover "businesses who shun the cloud and the strategies they have to do …
Only answer to suitability of cloud is 'it depends'
A lot of software companies have mature products and are unable to offer the slightest reason to upgrade to a chargeable new release. Their solution is to introduce recurring fees to use it 'in the cloud'. Not thanks.
However, if I have a varied workload on software I've paid for, hosting it 'in the cloud' makes sense as a I can scale up or down depending upon current needs. I lose the ability to keep hardware for years to get a good return, but at least I can get away with having less hardware.
Like I said, it depends upon what the question is and the people involved.
1) Yes. Trading business. Amazon is half their sales already.
2) No. Home Automation/IoT. Their pitch is that all data is stored at their facility and they control security "in house" from the OpenWrt build in the routers to the fireproof tape safe.
3) No. Personnel Agency. Outsourcing stuff (especially to a company that might transfer it out of the EU) causes too many compliance and insurance complications.
4) No. Financial sector. Compliance again, plus turning CapEx spend into a revenue charge doesn't stack up for them (according to the Accounting Trolls).
Note that in no case did they get as far as evaluating "cloud" in a technical I.T. sense. "2" rejected cloud because they saw a (n arguably) FUD based marketing angle and "3" and "4" rejected it because of Lawyers and Accountants.
if you re actually developing software and systems as opposed to consuming them, then the question of the cloud is brought up a lot. PM's mention it because, well PM's. Architects will find a reason for some cloud requirement and then the dev managers will do as hard as they can to do exactly what they have always done.
If you just need the cloud for storage, then your IT security bods will give you a list as long as your arm as to why you cannot do it. Your chief infrastructure guy will simply say yeah, OK as it quite often means they need to administer less disks.
I think they biggest problem most people and companies face when it comes to the cloud is this: What exactly is it? I think in 5 years time, when everything has calmed down a bit, the clouds might mean something different.
Perhaps the biggest push might come from the gaming sector, video games and gambling. There are some games out there that have already make use of it, Titanfall for example (even though it is pretty much dead these days).
Which all goes basically back to the things Cloud is suitable for.
Scaling workloads : yes
Ensuring privacy : no
If you work with sensitive data, then you have to keep that data where it is secure. Those companies that made that choice were right in not looking at the technical aspect because that aspect is not pertinent to the decision.
is hybrid cloud a fundamental for your organisation?
"The cloud" is really just marketing speak for hosting software on someone else's hardware, and in that sense then yes, it's a fundamental part of our organisation.
Most of our server estate sits as VMs on privately hosted virtual environments in various datacenters run by various suppliers.
The things we retain as on-premises are what's needed to make the office work, so we have Active Directory DCs, Exchange servers, file servers, and software repositories as either physical or virtual machines hosted in our own buildings.
Does this count as "hybrid cloud"?
I doubt it.
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