To Hybrid Cloud or Not To Hybrid Cloud?

The pandemic has led to the unprecedented adoption of new IT infrastructures as more businesses embrace digital migration. According to Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, two years of digital transformation took place over two months.

The cloud has been one of the core technologies to benefit from this boom with public cloud spending expected to increase by 21.7% in 2022. And according to reports, organisations are specifically leaning towards hybrid and multi-cloud approaches for workload and application management.

How is this mass shift to the cloud working out you wonder? Well, according to the ‘2022 Cloud Impact Study’ which polled over 400 IT leaders from the US, Canada, and the UK, migration to the cloud has helped improve organisation efficiency and data management.

Other aspects that have been positively influenced by the cloud according to the report include innovation, workforce mobility management, IT expenditure, and customer experience.

However, the implementation of cloud technology has not been without challenges, especially for those taking the hybrid approach. Even with benefits such as more architectural flexibility, better ability to meet compliance requirements, and access to additional security options to keep assets protected, there is still lacking proper expertise to manage data spread across cloud and legacy infrastructure.

44% of the respondents in the cloud impact study admitted that seamlessly integrating cloud and legacy applications is a major concern. Seven out of 10 interviewed said they were ready to embrace more cloud but lacked the required internal expertise.

The result is we are seeing a boomerang effect where some businesses are moving back to data centres. Organisations highlighted backup, websites, ERP, CRMs, and line of business applications as some of the components, they may have to move back to legacy systems even with all the cloud benefits.

Apart from the lack of adequate skills to facilitate seamless migration, a disconnect between development and operations in businesses has been highlighted as another cause of the boomerang effect. Development wants to create cloud-based applications, but operations who are responsible for administration want to revert to legacy systems because they are unfamiliar with cloud architecture.

Security is also a major point to consider seeing as how visibility into your IT infrastructure becomes complex in a hybrid cloud environment.

The good news is that all these challenges can be overcome with the right strategy. The reason they are present in the first place is that organisations rushed to the cloud in an attempt to keep afloat during the pandemic. 80% of those polled admitted to not having a planned, holistic cloud strategy before implementation.

However, since most organisations have acknowledged that they lack the right internal expertise to facilitate proper migration, MSPs will have to step up to manage these tasks for the businesses.