Cloud: it’s not all or nothing

You know the subject of ‘cloud computing’ has really arrived when mainstream business publications like the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal carry stories about its potential to create new opportunities for global business. However, all too often the ‘cloud debate’ is framed around perceptions that for some businesses it is unnecessary, complex and time consuming to deploy, with benefits that are difficult to quantify.

This thinking results from viewing cloud as an ‘all-or-nothing’ solution without taking into account its inherent flexibility and ability to more easily adapt to business needs, evolving as they evolve. Indeed, when it comes to cloud, it’s important to remember that one size doesn’t – and doesn’t have to – fit all.

While cloud computing has, to some extent, ‘earned its stripes’ in the area of application management and deployment, there are other, deeper layers across an organisation where it still has the potential to prove its worth. For mission-critical systems, a traditional hosted solution might make sense in the early stages, but it tends to lack the flexibility and scalability required to accommodate the rapid changes which are becoming commonplace in modern business – whether it is due to huge spikes in demand following an online marketing campaign, or a need to quickly expand into new markets and geographies. Similarly, public cloud offerings tend to fall short of the enterprise-grade security, reliability and scalability most large organisations require.

This is where the hybrid cloud comes in. At AT&T, we define hybrid cloud as the combined use of shared and private server assets. This approach to cloud takes advantage of the power of the enterprise network and leverages existing technology investments, while adding the rapid scalability and flexibility of cloud. All in all, we see this as a more sustainable, reliable, secure and more cost effective approach for many businesses in the long term.

In reality, private clouds will co-exist with hybrid clouds in the enterprise for the foreseeable future, as long as organisations have mission-critical apps and data that are too sensitive to be moved off-premise. But this approach can be very expensive in the long term because the system needs to be built to maximum load capacity, which is incredibly inefficient. Hybrid clouds can bridge the gap, providing a base for applications that require onsite management, while reducing the maintenance required for less mission-critical ones that can be housed externally.

For many businesses, working with a network operator can be the ideal way to make the transition to cloud on a step-by-step basis. By putting the network at the heart of a cloud offering, operators, such as AT&T, are in a strong position to ensure the solution is built on a foundation of performance, security and scalability. A robust and reliable network is the glue that binds together devices and applications, accelerating business delivery and mobilization. Capabilities like mobility, backup, disaster recovery, on-net applications, and network-based security can be built into the solution and delivered with a full complement of service level agreements, support and unified billing.

With flexibility, scalability and cost reduction remaining at the top of business agenda, the transition to a cloud model, of some description, seems likely to become inevitable within the short to medium term. The all-important next step for many organizations will be finding a transition model that makes the best use of existing infrastructure, while still building in potential for future needs – as well as finding the right vendor partners to help with the process.