Four steps to optimize application workload placement in your hybrid cloud
As enterprises rush to modernize their technology, 80% of companies are embracing hybrid cloud environments. By balancing private cloud flexibility and control alongside public cloud agility and performance, hybrid cloud allows businesses to distribute workloads according to unique application requirements.
While a hybrid cloud strategy provides limitless flexibility, it is challenging to navigate workload placements across environments. To get the most out of your private and public cloud, you need a holistic assessment of your entire technology environment.
With hybrid IT support, you tap into the expertise you need to optimize application workload placement and access the security, agility and performance of a hybrid cloud environment. No matter where you are in your transformation journey, follow these steps with a cloud migration service to mitigate risks, assess your environment, and optimize private and public cloud migrations.
Step 1: Select a hybrid cloud expert
Migration is a risky, complex process, despite the payoff.
Organizations often struggle to make decisions on where to place mission-critical workloads in complex environments. While security and cost savings are usually at the forefront of cloud decision making, other factors — like governance, performance and agility — complicate workload placement decisions for industries with unique needs.
When businesses migrate applications they also face perceived security risk and the chance of slowing business operations and introducing inefficiencies. In fact, nearly 50% of businesses forgo mission-critical application migration to avoid short-term business disruption.
As more organizations struggle to navigate private and public cloud cost optimization and performance, migration and consulting services are on the rise. Application services are estimated to comprise nearly 30% of the IT services market in the next three years.
However, not all cloud experts have the knowledge you need to optimize your hybrid cloud. Ensure that your partner is well-versed in infrastructure and cloud environments so they have an understanding of how to optimize all the pieces of your hybrid environment.
By assessing your current state and selecting the right workloads for your business and performance needs, you can reduce skyrocketing costs, business disruption and security challenges. The result? Migration challenges no longer stand in the way of your ideal state.
Step 2: Start with an assessment of your environment
Whether you’re just starting your transformation or your efforts have been stalled, hybrid cloud professionals enable you to enhance core business application performance. A cloud migration service evaluates your previously migrated workloads to determine how you can improve cost and/or performance by switching environments.
An expert partner or consultant then qualifies hybrid cloud readiness for your on-premise assets. By assessing whether applications are due to retire or have hardware or software limitations, a hybrid cloud professional enables you to identify applications best suited to stay on dedicated infrastructure or move to private or public cloud.
With proper planning, workloads that remain on dedicated infrastructure will be architected for successes and integrated with workloads moved to private or public cloud.
Step 3: Use both private cloud and public cloud for your workloads
A true hybrid cloud strategy leverages both private cloud and public cloud environments. When you take on application workload placement with migration support, you can unlock the unique value of each and strategically migrate assets.
Private cloud works best for workloads that require a more customized level of security control, governance and compliance. Workloads migrated to a dedicated private cloud environment tend to have:
- Integration with security and governance control
- Predictable pricing and performance
- Low latency with dedicated infrastructure, such as physical services, mainframe or IBM i systems
Public cloud is best suited for applications that require transformation into cloud native technology — like scalable microservice or IaaS and PaaS workloads that need to take advantage of hardware revisions and scaling technology. Workloads migrated to the public cloud tend to have:
- Capabilities of cloud native applications and tools
- Public-cloud-first strategy
- Global workload deployment
In the end, these private cloud and public cloud characteristics are tendencies — the line is blurry between which assets are right for the right environments. Ensono’s migration services are key to your success as you place assets in an environment that works for your current business needs and your future state.
Step 4: Optimize environments with hybrid cloud services
Even after you complete application placement and migration, the work is not over yet. To enhance application performance for your ideal state, you need to continually assess and shift assets across private cloud and public cloud environments.
Ensono’s cloud transformation solutions are built to help you realize the full potential of your hybrid cloud migration. With Ensono Private Cloud and our AWS and Azure Public Cloud managed services, we provide unbiased support and flexibility to ensure workloads are in the right place at the right time.
Ensono offers hybrid cloud services that increase business agility and flexibility without sacrificing governance or compliance standards. We accelerate digital transformation and protect workloads that require the highest level of security.
Once workloads have migrated to private cloud or public cloud environments, we:
- Continuously optimize: As your business changes, we conduct periodic assessments to ensure workload placement is optimized.
- Deliver granular security controls: We leverage software-defined networking to control access to and from VMs, reducing risk and integrating security measures into your existing infrastructure.
- Prioritize agility and flexibility: We rapidly deploy new workloads and enable build fast/fail fast practices.
- Empower your developers and IT team: We reduce risk and mitigate tedious tasks with automated self-service portals and developer APIs, enabling your team to quickly develop new applications or make changes to your environment.
- Modernize applications or workloads: We use our tools and expertise to develop cloud native applications, optimize data sources, manage APIs and leverage AI.
- Enable geographic distribution: We bring IT services and applications closer to user locations and meet regional regulatory requirements by moving data and applications to sovereign clouds
- Provide peace of mind: We provide integrated disaster recovery in a controlled, predictable environment.
Beyond private and public cloud management, we provide insights that enable your continuous evolution. Our industry-leading insights platform, Ensono Envision®, combines management on a single platform, so you improve visibility, drive cloud cost optimization and simplify IT processes across mainframe, private cloud and public cloud environments.
Navigate complex migration journeys with Ensono’s expertise
To make the most of your digital transformation, you need an expert partner. Ensono’s decades of data center management, private cloud and public cloud experience support you as you take on hybrid cloud migration and management.
Ensono offers end-to-end hybrid cloud services. Our Cloud Transformation Framework empowers you to build a transformation strategy that aligns your hybrid cloud journey with your ideal state. Additionally, our advisory and consulting services provide support as you navigate your move to the cloud. Then, when you reach target environments, our managed services provide ongoing support and optimization.
Since we know your business is continually changing, our Ensono Flex® clause is included in every contract — enabling clients to shift workloads across service platforms without financial penalty or lock-in. As a result, you access a true hybrid cloud model and limitless business growth.
Ready to make the most of your hybrid cloud? Contact Ensono to start end-to-end migration support.