The Doppler Quarterly Spring 2017 | Page 15

Hybrid cloud management is still more of an art than a science, considering that we’ve not been at it for very long. agement, resource management, cloud management platforms, performance management, DevOps man- agement, security management, network manage- ment, native platform management, etc. things into that category. For our purposes, we can call a “hybrid cloud” any collection of systems where you have at least one private cloud and one public cloud working together to support systems for IT. There can be as many as a dozen or so tools that you’ll need if you’re going to manage a hybrid cloud effec- tively. Picking tools is a matter of understanding what we’ve defined above as the requirements patterns, and then figuring out the solutions patterns that will match. For instance, if your requirement is that you encrypt all data at-rest or in-flight, and you need to manage both the encryption and the performance, then you would look for a tool or tools that provide both types of solutions. However, managers also need to understand the emerging notion of the “pragmatic hybrid cloud.” This is a traditional set of systems, typically running in a data center, paired with at least one public cloud. This configuration is growing in popularity, as many enterprises continue the migration to cloud, but they do so without leveraging a private cloud. Instead, they pair their traditional systems with public cloud- based systems. It’s then a matter of working through the require- ments, defining the common patterns, and then matching up the tools with the pattern. Sometimes you won’t find all of the tools that you need for all of the patterns. In those cases, you may consider custom tools. Or, perhaps a hybrid cloud is not in the cards after all, if management of those workloads on those platforms can’t be done using automation through management tools. In other words, in some cases, it’s OK to leave a workload off a hybrid cloud if they can’t be managed properly or at a reasonable cost. Hybrid Cloud Growth and Adoption Patterns Markets and Markets reports, “The hybrid cloud market is estimated to grow from USD $33.28 Billion in 2016 to USD $91.74 Billion by 2021, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 22.5% during the fore- cast period.” Of course, the issue with hybrid cloud is that the ana- lysts and technology providers are tossing many The emerging patterns are ones of increasing com- plexity. The right way to manage these combinations is not straightforward, because management needs to deal with the increasing complexity as well. This presents a new problem area, because one of the core management reasons for hybrid cloud adoption is to hide complexity behind an abstraction layer. In fact, instead of avoiding the complexities associated with hybrid cloud, managers need to better understand the native features and capabilities of the public or private clouds that make up the hybrid cloud. Cloud Management: Still More Art Than Science Hybrid cloud management is still more of an art than a science, considering that we’ve not been at it for very long. The complexity will likely increase over time, and that will mean that our approaches to hybrid cloud management need to evolve as well. For now, it’s a good time to understand just what you’re dealing with in terms of technology. If you’re charged with management of these platforms, you have your work cut out. SPRING 2017 | THE DOPPLER | 13