Public cloud usage among organizations of all sizes continues to grow. According to Gartner, the public cloud market is growing at a 21.4% rate in 2018, reaching more than $186 billion. 1
At the same time, however, many enterprises are hesitant to put their most business-critical applications into the public cloud because of concerns about performance, costs and security.
The ideal solution for most organizations is to utilize a hybrid cloud model that leverages a flexible, easy-to-scale, on-premises infrastructure that delivers a service-oriented model that is comparable to public cloud.
But not all infrastructure platforms are created equal. Here are the top five ways using the right converged infrastructure solution can empower you to successfully manage your on-premises and cloud environments.
No. 1: Simplify and automate
You want developers, line-of-business teams and other critical users to access on-demand infrastructure-as-a-service, whether using on-premises private cloud resources or public cloud. Your on-premises infrastructure should provide rapid, cloud-like service responses without the need for extensive integration projects. Automation is also critical, enabling you to reduce errors associated with repetitive tasks while deploying your precious IT personnel resources much more strategically.
No. 2: Leverage existing cloud software platforms
If yours is like most organizations, you are already using a range of platforms to manage workloads in hybrid and public cloud environments. With the right converged infrastructure platform, you can now easily build a high-performance foundation for the delivery of private cloud services. FlashStack, the converged infrastructure solution from Cisco™ and Pure Storage™, is pre-integrated with common cloud platforms such as Cisco ONETM Enterprise Cloud Suite, VMware™ vRealize Operations and OpenStack. With FlashStack™, you can also supply services through automated service portals, using management tools such as Cisco CloudCenter to manage and monitor on-premises, hybrid and public cloud workloads.
No. 3: Provide near-instant services
Performance is critical in today’s business environments, whether you are delivering IT services via public, private or hybrid cloud. Older technologies such as spinning disk drives won’t help provide the near-instant services that users have come to expect in the cloud era. You don’t want performance gaps to push developers and LOB managers to public cloud. Instead, you want them to have to option of using private or hybrid cloud, particularly when it comes to applications and workloads that require higher levels of security, data protection, compliance or performance. This means using converged infrastructure that leverage the latest innovations and best-of-breed products in high-density servers, network fabrics and all-flash storage—particularly arrays using NVMe technology.
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Download NowNo. 4: Grow without complications
In today’s world, IT teams are dealing with constant change. Exponential data growth is here to stay and is likely to accelerate with the expansion of social networking and the Internet of Things (IoT). Gartner predicts there will be more than 20 billion connected devices by 2020.2 In addition, IT innovation is moving at a rapid pace, not just in servers, storage and networking, but also with new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. In this environment, you must be able to consume innovation rapidly and efficiently. In choosing a converged infrastructure platform, make sure it features a modular, stateless architecture that enables you to adopt new technology and keep what you have without having to or undergo expensive migrations or forklift upgrades.
No. 5: Stay online, always
Corollary to growing without complications is the ability to stay online without disruption, eliminating risk of downtime or impact on performance of applications, whether on-premises in private cloud or in hybrid/public clouds. With FlashStack, you can scale without downtime, leveraging software-defined models across the entire infrastructure. You also have the ability to achieve breakthrough levels of business continuity and disaster recovery, using Cisco UCS, Nexus switching with ACI Anywhere and Purity ActiveCluster from Pure Storage. With FlashStack and ActiveCluster, IT teams can achieve zero recovery time objectives (RTOs) and zero recovery point objectives (RPOs) at a fraction of the cost of using traditional solutions requiring a separate data center.
Conclusion
The cloud era has redefined expectations among users and business leaders within most organizations, particularly developers and line-of-business managers. They want access to the IT services they need without hassle, delays, performance gaps or security concerns. IT teams, however, have to worry about all of those potential issues—making it critical to ensure that your on-premises infrastructure can deliver a cloud experience without compromise. Converged infrastructure provides the path to successfully integrating your on-premises and cloud environments. Choosing the right solution is key, which is why it is time to evaluate FlashStack from Cisco and Pure Storage.
1 “Gartner Forecasts Worldwide Public Cloud Revenue to Grow 21.4% in 2018,” Gartner, April 12, 2018
2 “Developing the Connected World of 2018 and Beyond,” Forbes, March 16, 2018
