Five Reasons Hybrid Cloud Might Be Your Best Business Choice [Blog]

What does “cloud-first” really mean and why do most companies never commit fully to the public cloud?

Up until recently, “cloud first” not only meant “cloud only”, it also meant “public cloud only”. Everything was as-a-service and server rooms were being transformed into extra meeting spaces. Fast forward to today, and we know that while public cloud providers can meet some of your as-a-service requirements, they’re not ideal for all of them.

Here are five of the main reasons why most companies never make it totally into the public cloud:

1. Up to 70% of applications and data need to stay on-premise for a range of reasons including data gravity, latency, IP protection, performance and app entanglement¹. This means that some IT needs to remain on-premise.
2. Two-thirds of companies see security and data compliance as a barrier to public cloud adoption².
3. Cloud migration skills are scarce, with 39% of CIOs saying this is stalling their cloud strategies³, sometimes by two years or more⁴.
4. Technically, public cloud doesn’t always deliver either. Most CIOs have noticed latency and speed issues when using cloud applications⁵.
5. And despite the expectations, public cloud costs are out of control. Up to 30% of cloud spend is wasted⁶  and cloud spend is typically 24% over budget⁶.

And a bonus point:

1. A particularly nasty type of bill shock can happen when companies need to move their data out of the public cloud. A report last year showed that unbudgeted data egress costs added around $30 million a year to NASA’s $65m-per-year AWS bill.

That’s not to say the public cloud doesn’t have its place, it certainly does have a role to play in the modern IT landscape – especially for SaaS. However, the public cloud-only destination is not a given.

In fact, it turns out that the majority of companies, who unintentionally ended up in a hybrid cloud situation, found themselves well-positioned for business growth, availability, reliability, flexibility, scalability, security and compliance. Rather than being a failure or a half-measure, hybrid cloud should perhaps have been the chosen destination all along.

With the benefits of a consciously hybrid approach in mind, many companies are wondering how to achieve the optimal balance. HPE GreenLake delivers on-premise workloads using a pay-per-use model*. At its core are all the benefits of on-premise IT infrastructure partnered with cloud-like consumption-based pricing. It’s an approach that gives you all the speed and flexibility benefits of the cloud experience while also ensuring you maintain control over your data and key apps – all for a predictable monthly fee that means you may never to need to lay out capital for your IT infrastructure again.

Find out more about running your business on HPE GreenLake with Daisy here.