There\u2019s no doubt that without the Cloud, most businesses would not have survived \u201cthe COVID years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, businesses were using the Cloud long before 2020, but experts agree that the pandemic accelerated digital transformation by between four and seven years at both organisational and industry levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are both positives and negatives associated with this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the frantic early days of the COVID-inspired Cloud migration, one of the easiest, fastest and most straightforward ways to move applications to the Cloud was what we call lift and shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s easy to see why this method was so popular \u2013 you simply had to \u201clift\u201d an application from its on-premises environment and \u201cshift\u201d it to a Cloud infrastructure without having to make any significant changes to either the application itself or its architecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It proved to be an effective way for organisations to adapt at pace to the sudden work-from-home directives from governments around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a knee jerk, but necessary response to an unprecedented global calamity no amount of business forecasting or modelling could ever have predicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that was then, this is now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Increasingly, we\u2019re seeing organisations battling to justify spiralling Cloud costs that have no apparent ROI and which are an unwelcome side effect of earlier unchecked Cloud migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Current estimates are that around a third of all Cloud spend is wasted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this isn\u2019t the only problem:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result, many organisations made the decision to repatriate many of their more mission-critical workloads back to an on-premises infrastructure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, this repatriation, sometimes referred to as reverse Cloud migration or Cloud exit, is not nearly as simple as migrating assets to the Cloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to assessing your Cloud environment and deciding which data and applications to move back, it might even be necessary to re-architect the application so that it\u2019s better suited to on-premises infrastructure, and make changes to data management and security protocols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of which has resulted in organisations creating what\u2019s become known as the \u201caccidental Hybrid Cloud.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This hodge-podge, Frankencloud is made up of everything from edge to colocation resources, and STaaS to DNS providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s unwieldy, complex and unnecessarily expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Businesses are realising that in order to achieve Cloud-driven business benefits, they must take back control of their Cloud migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Hybrid Cloud needs to move from being an unintentional accident to a cohesive business strategy that delivers real value and growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taking a strategic approach to Hybrid Cloud deployment delivers robust advantages for businesses and allows them to enjoy the best of both worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of these advantages include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, this all sounds ideal on paper, but one critical question remains:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How do you know which workloads to migrate to the Cloud, and which to keep on premises?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s an important question to answer, because when you have an optimal data storage and management solution in place, it\u2019s easy to extract maximum value from your data, no matter where it\u2019s stored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At CoCre8, we believe successfully leveraging the Hybrid Cloud means shifting your strategy from Cloud-first to workload-first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The workload-first strategy offers a tailored suit in a world of off-the-rack solutions. It prioritises business needs, and ensures each workload is optimised for performance, cost, and security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a topic we\u2019ll investigate more thoroughly in a separate blog, but here are three key guidelines:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Getting these right needs detailed consideration, and not all tech partners have the skills and experience to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In partnership with Fujitsu, CoCre8 can help you:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Make Fujitsu Hybrid Cloud the foundation of your business evolution, work with us and build a digitally resilient enterprise that\u2019s protected against uncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n