Businesses’ IT strategies have settled into a hybrid cloud consensus, with the realization that while some workloads are best housed on-premises, the benefits of public cloud are just too big to pass up. Ease of use is a big attraction: “five clicks to buy some compute” – who wouldn’t want that? Add to that a consumption-based, pay-as-you-go model and the potential for overall cost savings, and it’s no wonder boardrooms and CEOs are pressing IT to make more use of cloud.
The benefits are significant, and they’re definitely still up for grabs. At the same time, a lot of companies that ventured into public cloud early are finding that the performance and cost-savings benefits haven’t been as impressive as they expected. And many organizations that would love to reap the cloud’s benefits are hesitating to make the move, for at least three reasons:
Cloud transformation is a demanding task. How do you decide which workloads should move to the cloud, and which should stay put? And then how do you move those workloads? It’s just a mighty task. It’s complex, it’s time-consuming, and it can feel every bit as hefty as something like implementing a new ERP system. What’s more, lots of things could go wrong in the process.
The choice of vendors is limited. The cloud is essentially dominated by just three players: AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google. Making that first move can feel like walking into the lion's den. It raises all kinds of concerns and questions: “I'm putting trusted data and key workloads into this environment – how easily can I bring them back if I need to? How easily can I transfer them from one platform provider to another? How is latency going to work out? What about compliance, statutory requirements, security? Above all, how do I ensure the flexibility I need for my IT estate?”
It’s hard to find the right skills and resources. This is one of the biggest barriers to transformation; it crops up all the time in my conversations with IT leaders – “I just don't have the right skill set.” IT teams are so consumed with keeping the lights on while simultaneously driving innovation that it can be hard to find time for cloud initiatives. In addition, operating a traditional data center and operating a hybrid cloud environment are two very different things.
Businesses are increasingly looking for a trusted partner to help them understand which platform works best for each workload; take on the complex technical tasks around migrating data and workloads, and run and operate their hybrid cloud estate while continuing to innovate and improve it. HPE Pointnext Services meets all of those requirements and more.
Confident, courageous cloud
Regular readers of this blog will know that in March HPE introduced HPE Right Mix Advisor, a groundbreaking offering that helps companies find the optimal combination of venues for their data and applications, whether on- or off-prem. The solution massively simplifies the decision-making behind the move to cloud, producing a transition plan in a matter of weeks, not months or years.
In addition, HPE Right Mix Advisor continuously optimizes your hybrid cloud estate, ensuring that you don’t sacrifice choice or flexibility. As Erik Vogel explained in his post Your Best Hybrid Cloud Now, “the calculus for determining your right mix is constantly changing. If Azure, for example, offers a new service capability or a 10 percent pricing discount, and it makes sense to leverage it, you want to be able to move an application seamlessly into that new environment.” HPE Right Mix Advisor enables you to do that.
Services across the hybrid universe
HPE Right Mix Advisor is a real breakthrough for companies seeking to take some of the complexity and anxiety out of the move to cloud. And it’s just one solution among a broad array of cloud offerings and advisory services from HPE Pointnext Services.
For example, we can help you develop a holistic view of your entire hybrid estate. This is often a crucial move for companies that have already moved some assets to the cloud but found that the expected benefits haven’t materialized. We can take a top-down approach and re-evaluate what the IT landscape should look like, as a first step to developing a roadmap to better business outcomes.
HPE Pointnext Services can deliver automated, actionable insights into how IT assets are being consumed, helping you align usage more closely to cost. Take a large, complex organization like a university, for instance. With limited compute resources available for research, the CIO might want to provide consumption reports for the faculty deans so that they can monitor and manage usage without having to resort to a manual spreadsheet model. We can help you do that.
An important key to success in this hybrid cloud world is understanding what the cloud operating model looks like. In the traditional IT world, resources work in silos: server team, storage team, database team. We can help you understand how to integrate and orchestrate those teams in the organizational styles that work best for today’s more fluid environments. And we can augment your teams as needed. We can call on the deep expertise and global experience of our more than 5,000 professionals who, day in and day out, help companies develop their cloud strategy and make it happen.
When I think of an analogy for HPE Pointnext Services, what comes to mind is the ride-sharing industry – bear with me here, I know we’re constantly being told about Uber and the rest, and how disruptive and innovative they are. But the point I have in mind is a different one. If you think about it, these services really owe their success to that fact that they offer a comprehensive, frictionless, end-to-end customer experience. The way you call the ride is automated, payment is automated, feedback is automated. The solution eliminates a whole bunch of potential pain points and provides a different kind of ride. That’s what HPE Pointnext Services does – it’s a different kind of, well, journey to the cloud.
To learn more about HPE Pointnext Services, check out the interview below with Pradeep Kumar SVP & GM at HPE Pointnext Services. Pradeep will be talking about HPE Pointnext Services cloud capabilities at HPE Discover 2019, and attend the spotlight session Tuesday, June 18, 201912:00 p.m. - 01:00 p.m. SL9756: Make your cloud transformation pay for itself. We hope to see you there!
MitchellFeldman
Marketing Manager, Cloud Advisory, HPE Pointnext Services
