92% of IT Decision Makers report they are implementing some form of hybrid IT.1
Hybrid IT is emerging as a promising infrastrucuture model that is capable of combining the benefits of both cloud and traditional IT applications into a powerful, cohesive infrastructure. And real-world implementations have demonstrated several benefits including cost efficiency, flexibility and security. In addition, hybrid IT has the potential to empower development teams with innovative new workflows and just may be the key to eliminating “shadow IT”.
To take advantage of all the benefits hybrid IT offers, a new approach to data center infrastructure is required. Composable infrastructure, with its ability to create highly virtualized pools of compute, storage and networking resources that can be managed centrally and provisioned with code, is the key to realizing the full potential of hybrid IT. This tech brief offers a glimpse into the benefits of hybrid IT, and outlines why composable infrastructure is well positioned to enable them.
APPLICATION-ALIGNED INFRASTRUCTURE COSTS
To stay ahead of constantly-increasing application demands, many companies are faced with a difficult choice. They must either over provision on-premises infrastructure or pay the costs that come with heavy public cloud utilization. Left unchecked, each of these choices can rapidly eat away at a company’s IT budget. But with a hybrid approach, organizations can begin to strike a better balance between infrastructure spending and the needs of their critical applications.
Composable infrastructure provides the means through which hybrid IT achieves that balance. Leveraging a unified management console that spans public cloud and on premises infrastructure, IT leaders can analyze the cost benefits of porting workloads from one platform to another. This singular view also gives IT the ability to continuously optimize resource provisioning, maximize the cost effectiveness of existing hardware and minimize costs on public cloud resources. It all adds up to infrastructure and cloud platform costs that are tightly aligned with the precise needs of the applications they support.
THE FLEXIBILITY TO SUPPORT UNPREDICTABLE WORKLOADS
Business for most companies is not constant, and that typically leads to intermittent application workloads that fluctuate based on the time, day or season. That can make it difficult to predict infrastructure requirements and provision resources perfectly, leading to unnecessary costs when utilization is low, and performance problems in times of high demand. With hybrid IT’s ability to enable “cloud bursting,” companies can leverage their on-premises infrastructure for normal operations and take advantage of the public cloud for workload overflows.
“Cloud bursting” allows IT professionals to rapidly turn to the public cloud for resources that aren’t available on-premises. This level of flexibility is only possible with composable infrastructure and its dynamic, adaptable nature. Through a set of powerful APIs that treat infrastructure as code, composable infrastructure creates a universal language for the entire application environment. That makes it possible to push workloads from on-premises infrastructure into the cloud as needed.
HEIGHTENED SECURITY, CONTROL AND COMPLIANCE
A dangerous assumption people often make is that public cloud platforms are inherently safe. Often, this is not the case. Public clouds can be more susceptible to cyberattacks, government intrusion or insider threats than well managed on-premises infrastructure. In addition, it’s difficult for companies in regulated industries to maintain compliance with government security and privacy requirements in the cloud. These risks can be lessened in a hybrid IT model.
By leveraging both the public cloud and on-premises infrastructure, IT leaders can begin to establish and enforce rules that ensure their applications operate safely and within compliance. One key component of this approach is to create policies that differentiate the applications and data that must be kept on-premises from those that are safe to run in the cloud. But to support such a hybrid model in the real world, organizations must go beyond rule making and facilitate the hybrid model with composable infrastructure.
Composable infrastructure’s unified management framework provides operations staff with the portability, visibility and control needed to run virtually any application in either the public cloud or on-premises infrastructure. This makes it possible for organizations to run every application in its rightful place based on its requirements for security and governance. In addition, the composable API makes it possible to move an application in case its needs (or company policies) ever change. With composable infrastructure, IT leaders can move low risk applications into the public cloud, freeing up on-premises resources for new applications that need to be developed or executed in more secure environments.
A WELL-DEFINED SPACE FOR DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING
For application developers, it can sometimes be a struggle to find a reliable place to build and test their creations. They need a dedicated space that is similar enough to the live environment in which their applications will be deployed, but will not disrupt production. “Sandboxing” is a valuable technique that allows developers to define the perfect space in the cloud for application creation and testing, and it’s a perfect fit for hybrid IT principals and composable infrastructure.
In a hybrid IT approach, sandboxes can be created quickly in either the public cloud or on-premises. And once they have served their purpose, sandboxes can be easily torn down and reconfigured. This helps development teams to quickly create and test applications in cloud environments and then pull them back down on-premises for implementation.
With a hybrid model, development teams have the option to provision onsite or in the cloud, and when combined with composable infrastructure’s ability to provision via API, they can spin up new sandbox environments quickly and easily as needed. Through composable’s software-defined nature, IT leaders can simplify and expedite the provisioning workflows at the start of the application development process. It can also help businesses adapt more quickly to change through the ability to provision, decommission and re-provision sandboxes at a moment’s notice.
AN END TO SHADOW IT?
When developers grow impatient with their on-premises infrastructure teams and want resources faster, they often resort to the public cloud for instant gratification. Making this move is generally frowned upon and can lead to what is commonly known as “shadow IT”—unregulated, unmonitored IT practices that can open the door to serious security risks and significant costs.
Composable infrastructure can bring cloud platforms together with on-premises infrastructure through its unified management capabilities, allowing workloads to be moved from on-premises infrastructure into the sanctioned public cloud as needed. With composable infrastructure, development teams can instantly provision resources using their management platform of choice, or even better, within their own code through a powerful API. That enables near-realtime provisioning and makes it far less likely that developers will resort to unsanctioned activities in the cloud. With a hybrid IT model that’s driven by composable infrastructure, shadow IT could soon become a thing of the past.
CONCLUSION
Hybrid IT may be the ultimate architecture model, one that allows companies to take their application development efforts to new heights. By combining the control, security and manageability of private infrastructure with the convenience of the public cloud, hybrid IT promises to deliver the speed, flexibility and cost alignment businesses crave.
But to truly unlock this potential, IT leaders must first embrace composable infrastructure as an enabling technology. Through its ability to create fluid resource pools, its unified management framework, and its powerful ability to enable Infrastructure as Code, composable has all the tools companies need to realize the full promise of hybrid IT. And in the process, composable can help companies supercharge their development efforts, ensure compliance, simplify management and keep costs in check.
Sources: 1. IDG Research commissioned by WEI, June 2017.
