The benefits of hybrid cloud are compelling, but getting there may seem daunting. It doesnt need to be. The process becomes far less complex when you adopt a model that provides true integration and consistency.
As you evaluate hybrid cloud solutions, we recommend that you look at the following four criteria. As you begin to assess your environment, think about the areas where you will add value to your users, while taking advantage of your existing on-premises assets and cloud. Look for consistency across:
- Identity management: With single sign-on, self-service, and managed access, you get a secure and seamless experience across environments and devices.
- Application development: Developers want a build once, deploy everywhere environment. In a consistent hybrid cloud environment, a platform that has the same APIs, same language and skillset makes app development more seamless for developers.
- Data access: Regardless of where your data resides, you can access and enrich it with powerful analytics and visualization tools.
- Management and security: End-to-end visibility is important in a true hybrid cloud. Visibility across on-premises and cloud environments is critical for robust protection and recovery, automation and control, security and compliance, expedited threat detection, and system monitoring.
Of course, any move to a hybrid cloud model will involve a migration strategy, and its essential to plan your path with a comprehensive road map. Your road map should include the following steps:
- Discover: A cloud migration strategy begins with simple discovery and analysis to create a specific business and technical validation plan. This plan allows you to discover all your applications, as well as their workload and data dependencies.
- Migrate: A flexible and powerful migration toolkit enables application migration from anywhere to the cloud. Inbuilt migration testing ensures expected results and warm migration means no long outages. With advanced monitoring and analytics, its possible to manage both performance and utilization.
- Optimize: Using intelligent algorithms to maximize utilization and identify blockers, your migration plan will ensure application performance with right-sized machines. Planning and assessment tools guide the process from right-sizing to remodeling and rearchitecting if needed.
Hybrid by design
The path to the hybrid cloud looks different for every organization, depending on factors such as business type, industry segment, governance and security requirements, and cultural readiness.
Learn how a hybrid cloud strategy can help you be more successful in your migration to the cloud.
- Explore migration resources.
- Read the e-book, Accelerate your digital transformation: the enterprise guide to hybrid cloud.
- Learn more about Microsoft hybrid cloud.
