UPDATED 13:20 EDT / AUGUST 23 2019

INFRA

A hybrid how-to on migration from traditional IT to software-defined infrastructure

Ten years ago, most data was stored in centralized databases. Cloud was an innovative idea, but not one ready for mainstream adoption. Then, the cloud burst. Cloud adoption became the “must-do” trend, and large and small businesses “lifted and shifted” their data to the public cloud.

But security issues slammed the brakes on public cloud mania. More than 1,090 data breaches occurred in 2016, a number that rose to 1,623 in 2017, according to online statistics portal Statista Inc.. Over 2 million records were exposed in the same two years, a figure eclipsed by the almost 450 million records hacked in 2018. Companies who had embarked on the transition without a security net in place scrambled to return sensitive data on-premises.

Except going back in time wasn’t possible. Cloud had changed the world, and mobile applications demanded an agility that on-premises data centers could not provide. Information-technology teams went back to the drawing board, and a new model emerged — one that merged the flexibility and speed of cloud with the security of the data center.

“Developing an automated IT service delivery model that is cloud-like in nature, on-prem, and as well as extending that to public services and creating a single experience for your user base is where IT organizations are trying to put their effort today,” said David Fafel (pictured), chief architect at Worldcom Exchange Inc. “Creating a hybrid cloud environment is the way that they’re going to accomplish that.”

Fafel spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante), host of theCUBE, at SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio in Boston, Massachusetts. Over two separate interviews, they discussed intelligent storage solutions and hybrid cloud solutions (see the full interviews with transcript here and here). (* Disclosure below.)

Watch Fafel’s video interview about storage and cloud solutions below:

Hybrid is here to stay

Worldcom Exchange Inc., commonly known as WEI, provides IT consulting services to enterprise-scale organizations. As chief architect, Fafel is responsible for providing advice as companies make the transition from traditional IT architecture to virtual infrastructure.

“As organizations started to realize that hybrid cloud strategy was a sound one, they needed the technology to be able to support that,” Fafel stated.

The answer comes in the form of software-defined solutions, which remove the barriers to speed and portability. “Software-defined anything is really the decoupling of the control plane, from the data plane,” Fafel explained.

For a software-defined data center, this means the ability for faster provisioning and data portability, which are also benefits of cloud storage. “Software-defined data center computing is big,” Fafel said. He describes it as “creating service delivery models that are cloud-like in nature, whether on-prem or in a hybrid environment, or public [cloud] service.”

The strength of partnership with HPE

The ability to automate tasks is a key benefit of adopting a hybrid cloud model for IT services. As hybrid cloud adoption becomes more widespread, companies are reacting by building artificial intelligence into infrastructure management, making advanced analytics, prediction, and automation de-facto functions. One example of this is Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., whose storage platforms are optimized by the company’s InfoSight AI operations.

WEI is an HPE Platinum partner, working across the HPE portfolio. “We understand their initiatives around data center automation, creating a hybrid IT environment,” Fafel stated.

The unique HPE GreenLake is a product that stands out by providing companies with cloud-like subscription-based services in a capitalized model, according to Fafel. “Essentially, it’s giving organizations the ability to have that public service experience on-prem and consume what they need when they need it. And then more importantly, capitalize that if they really want to,” he said.

Watch Fafel’s interview on HPE intelligent storage solutions below:

Hyperscalers invest in hybrid, build-in intelligence and automation

“What is Azure Stack?” Fafel asked, but, “the ability to extend Microsoft Azure Cloud on-prem.” Hyperscalers, such as Microsoft Corp. and Amazon Web Services Inc., are investing to provide a consistent platform experience across multiple locations — an investment Fafel sees as a sign that “hybrid is going to be around for a while.”

“Hybrid cloud and our ability to create all of these processes internally, those automations to make that on-prem experience feel the same as it would in a public service is where most enterprises have realized they need to be,” Fafel stated.

But hybrid is not the final destination. “As the affordability and as the network performance and the cost … comes down and more and more commoditized, there will be fewer and fewer reasons to make those on-prem investments,” he predicted, forecasting that most organizations will adopt a multicloud strategy within the next decade.

“As we can make the platforms that our applications are running on become agnostic across [the] cloud, it’s just another service,” Fafel stated. “If I can containerize most of my applications and I can move them from cloud to cloud, why wouldn’t I do that?”

Be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations(* Disclosure: Worldcom Exchange Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither WEI, HPE, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE

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