For many organizations moving to a hybrid cloud environment is still uncharted territory. EMC Information Infrastructure CEO David Goulden recently discussed the drivers behind hybrid cloud and how it helps organizations innovate rapidly while still delivering enterprise-grade performance and resiliency.
So if everyone sees the value, what is holding companies back? What are their concerns with hybrid cloud? Security, data protection and availability tend to bubble to the top. The promise of hybrid cloud is to deliver IT-as-a-service for consumers to access the resources they need when they need them. The IT department must be able to maintain the visibility and control they need, while automating delivery of services to consumers, all without putting the business at risk.
A well-run hybrid cloud provides the tools needed to define the applications and services the IT department wants to offer consumers, including options for data protection, security and compliance.
Selecting an application or IT service is like an a la carte menu for the consumer. They go to a service catalog and choose the sizing and performance characteristics. They can also select the type of data protection services they need such as backup, disaster recovery and continuous availability – all of these have already been defined by the IT organization in advance.
Security features can be offered in much the same way, with options for encryption to guard data against theft no matter where it resides in the cloud.
However, not all decisions on security and protection features should be left up to consumers. Some protection must be baked into the solution. For example, protection against unauthorized access is critical and organizations need granular firewall protection between application layers. A hybrid cloud solution should also be able to securely isolate environments within the cloud.
Building in security, data protection and availability is fundamental to a well-run enterprise hybrid cloud, which is why we have all of them as part of our Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution.
Make sure they are part of the solution you choose to invest in too.
