virtualisation & cloud services
like this creates as many challenges
as simply picking one application and
transforming it. Will this hybrid work
together practically? Will the latencies
between the cloud part and my DC’s
work? Will the data sets in multiple
places be able to be brought together
to give the organisation that complete
view they crave? Even if it does,
who’s to say that your four ‘partners’
will all progress lock step as one
happy family?
The equipment vendors are not all
wrong, however. They are responding
to a predictable and highly foreseeable
future where the current separation of
cloud, network, data centre and even
managed services converges (doesn’t
have to ‘hyperconverge’ but I guess
we have run out of superlatives) ie.
comes together, so that instead of you
integrating the elements someone has
done it for you.
Digital Enterprise Platform
Combining the elements
A simpler solution is to look for
a platform where the integration
has been done for you, combining
the elements as one platform
where you are focused on using
it, not building it. The vendor
community is excited about
this prospect and is advocating
‘hyper-converged’ equipment that
combines computing, storage and
networking in one neat package.
Whilst an admirable attempt at
sustainability, it fails for many, as
it doesn’t give you the ‘cloudy’
consumption model and even as an
augmentation to cloud, as the more
ridiculous notion of ‘fog’, it’s simply
shifting the deck chairs.
20
So, a Digital Enterprise Platform
is one that combines cloud and
network, cloud and DC, DC and
network and all works together so
you simply have to consume it. It’s all
very obvious really. Cloud invariably
needs network – you have to connect
to it – you might want multiple
locations (Europe’s gnarly data
laws, languages and taxes all help
to make this so) with built-in private
interconnects so YOU don’t have to
overlay a network. The DC and cloud
are close or in the same building
so you don’t have to worry about
‘stretching’ applications. Some things
you want to simply and literally roll
into a DC and maintain as part of the
estate, but get out of that DC lease
into something more flexible. The DC
surely is part of the network and so
on. Layering over this and helping the
transition is a layer of services that
help transform and realign, so the
whole things works simply.
To take an example, let’s look at
the Scabal Group which we work with.
Scabal was founded in 1938 and is an
exclusive provider of luxury menswear
known for dressing everyone from
movie stars and celebrities to heads of
state. Scabal Group was relocating to
a new office in Brussels and had the
choice of moving its existing physical
IT infrastructure to the new location
or look for a more convenient and
flexible outsourcing option. It decided
on a hybrid solution for expedience,
marrying together their physical
infrastructure and newly flexible cloud
resources as one contiguous platform.
A fully integrated platform has
considerable technical and application
advantages but perhaps its most
compelling attraction is simply the
fact that it creates options and
choices. Given that you have a mix of
infrastructure types and platforms, free
network and end-to-end assurance, all
in the same platform with global reach,
there is no need to time different
infrastructure vendors contract
termination dates, pay upfront for
services and worry about ‘when’ you
need to ‘lift and shift’. The speed of
change these days often means that
planning is more about how wrong you
are going to be, rather than how right.
The longer the horizon, the greater the
risk. The Digital Enterprise Platform
removes this planning risk, as you are
not obligated to transform. You can
simply consolidate and save money,
or conversely you can only focus on
transformation safe in the knowledge
that you are consolidating continually
and not creating silos.