Considering Hybrid Deployment? Here’s Some Food for Thought with Servecentric’s Brian Roe
According to Flexera’s 2021 State of the Cloud report, 80% of global enterprises already have a hybrid cloud strategy, while 61% planned to optimize cloud costs in 2021, making it a top initiative for the fifth year in a row.
As organizations look to further refine their cloud strategy and diversify their telecom capabilities, we can expect to see a rise in the adoption of IT infrastructure that can host multiple platform types.
To explore the benefits, considerations and future of hybrid cloud deployment for small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), we caught up with Brian Roe, CEO of Servecentric, for industry insight.
Benefits of hybrid cloud deployment in the enterprise environment
Hybrid deployment refers to any IT infrastructure deployment that includes two or more platform types, or that uses multiple cloud vendors to provide the platform for a company’s IT operations, and it presents several attractive benefits for SMEs:
- Cost savings driven through an efficient use of resources;
- Improved scalability and control;
- Business continuity;
- Control of key resources.
NTT’s 2021 Hybrid Cloud Report also reflects some of these benefits, with enterprise respondents citing business continuity and resilience (77.5%), improving agility and the ability to respond to change (66.9%) and cost savings (64.3%) as the top objectives for hybrid cloud adoption.
First and foremost, organizations of any size can reap significant cost savings through an efficient use of resources, Roe says.
Hybrid cloud deployment allows users to leverage public cloud capacity in a way that complements the resources in their private environment, which enables a fuller, more cost-efficient utilization of resources when used concurrently.
This integration of resources also provides businesses the opportunity to tap into the scalability of public cloud for their dynamic workloads which may vary in volume over time, while simultaneously maintaining the ability to keep less volatile or more sensitive workloads in a private cloud or an on-premises data center.
Another key advantage of a hybrid deployment is its greater assurance of business continuity, which is a proactive measure for preventing potential disruptions and ensuring the continued support of customer demands.
According to Roe, the use of private cloud is pertinent to disaster recovery and business continuity, especially in the event of a natural disaster or scheduled downtime which can interfere with the running of mission-critical systems and applications.
“Although the trend of digitization of operations and cloud adoption has brought about many benefits, increased reliance on the availability and integrity of these systems goes hand in hand,” he says.
“Recent events such as the global pandemic, extreme weather events and escalation of cyber attacks have made it essential for businesses of all types to implement an effective DR/BC plan.”
In addition to ensuring continuity, a hybrid public/private deployment can ultimately equip SMEs with greater control over their key resources, which is increasingly important for businesses who want to have a secure IT infrastructure which they can still oversee and strategically manipulate.
A few things to consider with a new deployment strategy
Given these unique and valuable benefits for businesses, hybrid cloud deployment may be a worthy investment for your small-to-medium sized enterprise.
According to Roe, a firm considering any sort of IT deployment should begin by asking the following “W” questions:
- What are you going to achieve through the process and how will this be measured retrospectively? This could be increased efficiency, cost savings, security or other mission-critical criteria.
- Why are you looking at a particular solution or vendor? Is the decision partner-driven, and if so, are they acting in the client’s best interest?
- Who is driving the agenda and who has the individual responsibilities for successful execution?
- When is the right time for the business to push ahead with this deployment?
Roe emphasizes the importance of understanding not just the benefits of cloud deployment, but also how to measure these benefits and when to deploy new processes.
“The ability to move workloads from platform to platform with relative ease is key to successful hybrid deployments,” he says.
“This is a very important consideration, for example, when implementing hyperscale PaaS services.”
Looking ahead at future enterprise IT environments
The cloud deployment space is one in which many organizations are already well-versed, but different preferences are emerging as enterprise needs change with the demands of today’s erratic business climate.
“Looking ahead, I believe that hybrid deployments comprising Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) multi-cloud services, along with client-owned private cloud solutions, will dominate the landscape,” Roe says.
“Increased security and compliance drivers and improved business continuity will also be key to all of these deployments, and will shape architectures going forward,” he says.
In cases where latency is a concern, such as with multinational workforces and Internet of Things (IoT), Roe believes that edge computing and automation tools will come to the fore, which will help to increase efficiency, security, and total costs of ownership (TCOs).
“The cloud-first and cloud-only movements have reached a maturity,” Roe says, “and the modern CIO is understanding that they are not the panacea for the digital workplace, but merely play (an albeit, very important) role in the overall picture.
“This is because there will always be workloads that are more suited to colocation environments for reasons including control, compliance, security, vicinity and, importantly, cost, which are needs that are not going to subside any time soon.”
Ultimately, Roe believes that interconnectivity between the various elements of the overall hybrid deployment will remain critical into the future, especially as SMEs continue to leverage valuable IT infrastructure to navigate today’s complex business environment.
Want to discover more about hybrid deployment for your business?
Servecentric offers a consultative approach to its client engagements and provides flexible colocation and connectivity products for SMEs, from direct hyperscale connectivity to managed on-demand connectivity services.
Head to Servecentric’s page on Cloudscene to see what they can do for your organization, or reach out to Cloudscene’s team of experts in cloud and colocation for assistance with your next IT project or implementation strategy.
Contributor – Brian Roe, CEO, Servecentric
Brian Roe was appointed as CEO of Servecentric Ltd. in May 2021 following 5 years working as Commercial Director of the company. The company specialises in bringing an agile and flexible approach to the provision of colocation, connectivity and cloud services to a range of clients from growing software development houses to multinational organisations.
Prior to entering the Data Centre services space, Brian worked in the IT Managed Services sector for over 15 years where he held a number of senior roles delivering IT solutions, support and outsourcing services to both Enterprise and SME markets.
