The hype around hybrid cloud is at its precipice right now. Everyone is talking about it; conferences (like VMWorld) are focusing on it; and most every company is wondering to themselves – “should I be considering hybrid cloud solutions and strategies as part of my IT infrastructure?” But is it more than hype – are we actually reaching a maturation stage?
The cloud itself is still somewhat nascent – there is great promise in being able to make everything virtual, but public clouds are intimidating to many companies and many reassurances and developments will be needed before we see any sort of real enterprise adoption there. The hype around hybrid cloud, however, is real, and in some instances, maturation is truly taking place and companies are seeing real results and return from their investment in the technology. By 2017, Gartner predicts that half of mainstream enterprises will have a hybrid cloud – so it is happening, folks.
One instance where maturation is clear – and an instance that we’ve discussed before – is “shadow IT,” where individuals or workgroups decide to adopt non-approved public cloud services and applications outside of the management (and often knowledge) of IT. It’s scary, but it also is forcing maturing by showing that there are adopters out there, and enterprises and IT departments must adjust, accommodate and mature the technology before it works against them.
Maturity in hybrid cloud is also seen in the sheer increase in mobile users that are less concerned with where their data and apps live and more concerned with having constant access to them. Hybrid cloud solutions are making that possible for companies that want their employees to be constantly connected but also want to keep the data in check for security and risk management purposes.
Providers/vendors are also seeing more demand and in turn maturing and improving their offerings as a result. Markley Group, for instance, offers Markley Cloud Services, a hybrid cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering that gives companies peace of mind with a secure, reliable cloud-based solution, but also ensures maximize IT performance, reliability, and low latency.
Markley Group caught wind of the true potential with hybrid cloud early on, and has remained committed to maturing our offerings in direct response to what our customers want. Other vendors are following suit, and as a result, end users are seeing platforms and solutions that are truly paying attention to the needs of businesses now from a hybrid perspective, and not just guesstimating where the majority of infrastructures stand in the hype cycle.
IT departments have a real opportunity here to be proactive and become trusted partners for their employees if they stay ahead of trends and keep up with the “hype.” Providing hybrid cloud solutions that replace the public cloud tools that employees have learned to rely on will become the next stage in the game, and will demonstrate real maturation of the technology.
