When you are presenting a way for IT to save money and have a better strategy to leverage the cloud, here’s a pro tip that can benefit any and all enterprises: A hybrid multi-cloud approach, with a strong private cloud configuration, creates the opportunity to consolidate storage arrays for maximum efficiency.
Consolidation of storage saves on operational manpower, rack space, floor space, power expense, cooling expense – CAPEX and OPEX savings, while delivering a greener data center. Why do you need 22 storage arrays when you can do the same things with only two or four storage arrays? You can consolidate storage while improving access to data across a hybrid multi-cloud and a container-native environment for greater resilience, lower latency, and higher availability.
As enterprises evolve themselves digitally, a hybrid multi-cloud strategy orchestrates all the different aspects of it in a mixed computing, storage and services environment, comprised of on-premises infrastructure, private cloud services, and a public cloud, such as Azure and AWS. Adopting a hybrid multi-cloud strategy gives you obtain greater visibility across the enterprise data infrastructure, and your storage solution makes the public cloud appear as if it’s just another storage system similar to the enterprise arrays on-premises.
Many companies execute a hybrid multi-cloud strategy by deploying their own private cloud integrated with one or more public cloud providers. A private cloud, basically, mimics a public cloud deployment. The following are the main reasons why enterprises choose a hybrid cloud strategy:
- #1 reason: security
- #2 reason: cost control
- #3 reason: providing 100% application and workload availability
- #4 reason: providing the necessary performance for demanding and highly transactional workloads
With a private cloud, you have better, more exact control over cost structure and service level agreements (SLAs). Essentially, you are able to match SLAs, such as application performance and availability, with a higher level of control.
Having data sit with a third-party provider is an issue for many enterprises – security, compliance, regulatory, performance, etc. With a hybrid cloud, some of your data is on-premises, and some of your data is off-premises. But you own both the on-premises and off-premises part of the equation.
By combining both worlds of private and public cloud and, therefore, having an end-to-end hybrid multi-cloud experience across on-premises and the off-premises public cloud (namely, Microsoft Azure and AWS), enterprise data infrastructures are made easier to manage, more consistent, more cost-effective, and more flexible. This applies to enterprise storage just as much as it does for various forms of enterprise computing.
The need for a hybrid multi-cloud storage solution that can deliver these benefits is an essential linchpin for unlocking the real advantages of using enterprise storage arrays on-premises and in the cloud. Having a comprehensive framework for hybrid multi-cloud simplifies deployments.
The storage operating system used in the arrays should support multiple public cloud providers, including the two largest public clouds globally − AWS and Azure. It’s ideal when the cloud edition of the software-defined storage is built from the exact same code as the on-premises enterprise storage solution: same functionality, same ease of use, same automation, same cyber resilience, same interfaces and seamless integration between the on-premises storage environment and the off-premises public cloud storage environment.
The support for multiple clouds ultimately enables enterprise organizations to manage and secure data more easily and more effectively.