Cloud chapter two: How a hybrid cloud strategy can transform business

In the first chapter of cloud, we saw that enterprises were primarily focused on cost management and driving new workload innovation on the cloud. This included everything from building cloud-native applications to migrating less complex and more easily portable workloads to the public cloud. While adoption has grown rapidly, to date only about 20 percent of enterprise workloads have moved to the cloud according to a study by McKinsey & Company.
We’re now beginning chapter two, which is focused on driving the remaining 80 percent of enterprise workloads to the cloud. This will help businesses unlock new insights and value from their data using next-generation tools like artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, blockchain and more. These workloads are often mission critical and run the heart of the enterprise. It will not be easy pickings and a one size fits all model will not work.
Driving new business value with hybrid cloud solutions
While the possibilities are endless, the cloud journey can be daunting for enterprises who have unique regulatory and data requirements and are currently running anywhere from five to 15 different clouds from multiple providers.
This is why businesses need to consider a hybrid cloud approach, which helps them build, deploy and manage applications and data running on-premises, in private clouds and in public clouds from multiple vendors. With a combination of innovative technology and industry expertise completely underpinned with security, as well as a focus on open solutions and enterprise grade, IBM is already helping move some of the world’s largest enterprises into the next chapter of cloud.
For example, Harley-Davidson Motor Company, an American iconic motorcycle manufacturer, is using IBM Cloud, AI and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to reimagine the everyday experience of riding. Their LiveWire H-D Connect service, built on the IBM Cloud, provides cellular connectivity and links a LiveWire owner with their motorcycle through their smartphone using the latest version of the Harley-Davidson App. This platform is the foundation on which Harley-Davidson will provide its riders with new services and insights available for its first-ever production electric vehicle.
Delivering enhanced global reach, scale and services
The need is clear across nearly every industry and geography from clients like Harley-Davidson to other major brands like ExxonMobil, Vodafone Business, and Whirlpool. They want to infuse existing IT and private cloud environments with new public cloud capabilities like AI and analytics in a secured, globally consistent manner. Moreover, they need to be able to easily choose where to deploy their workloads across multiple environments (on-premises, private and public cloud), which requires a commitment to open source and increased automation and management.  This hybrid cloud approach is helping our clients launch new business services, completely transform user and employee experiences and much more.
That’s why IBM continues to unveil new capabilities and services across our entire hybrid cloud portfolio, as well as expand the global reach, scale and services of the IBM public cloud. Here are just few public cloud features that IBM has introduced in this year:

Our sixth IBM Cloud region, which is in Sydney, Australia, and features three availability zones for high availability and resiliency.
IBM Cloud Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) providing the logical isolation and security of a private cloud with the availability, cost-effectiveness, and scalability of the public cloud, simplifying the deployment of secure, available, and resilient workloads.
IBM Power Systems Virtual Server on IBM Cloud for AIX and IBM i workloads with use cases such as disaster recovery, dev/test environments, and partial IT infrastructure moves and more.
IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions integration of VMs and containers along with IBM Cloud security services and additional infrastructure options.
New IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services to provide encryption key management with a dedicated cloud hardware security module (HSM) built on the only FIPS 140-2 level 4-based technology certification offered by a public cloud provider.
Managed Istio and Managed Knative on the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service so that developers can quickly build and deploy enterprise-scale container-based and serverless applications across hybrid environments.

And with the close of the Red Hat acquisition, we are bringing together Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud technologies with the unmatched scale and depth of IBM innovation and industry expertise, and sales leadership in more than 175 countries. Together, IBM and Red Hat will accelerate innovation by offering a next-generation hybrid multicloud platform. Based on open source technologies, such as Linux and Kubernetes, the platform will allow businesses to securely deploy, run and manage data and applications on-premises and on private and multiple public clouds.  This consistency regardless of deployment (private, public or a third-party cloud) will be a game changer for the IBM cloud strategy.
This continued dedication to innovation and client-first transformation has helped IBM build a $19.5 billion cloud business with clients relying on IBM Cloud to help them turn the page on the next chapter of their cloud journeys.  It’s going to be an amazing journey…..hop on, strap in and let’s go!
Learn more about the next chapter and what analysts are saying about the hybrid cloud.
The post Cloud chapter two: How a hybrid cloud strategy can transform business appeared first on Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

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