IIn recent years, the hybrid cloud model has become increasingly important in corporate IT infrastructure. By combining two or more computing environments – the most common being integrations between public and private clouds – organizations have achieved a range of benefits in efficiency, access, flexibility, scalability, cost reduction, security and performance across their digital networks. According to a 2022 study by 451 Research and Cisco (blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/why-hybridcloud-brings-benefits-to-enterprises), which surveyed 2,500 IT leaders in 13 countries, 82% of IT teams have already implemented the solution
Hybrid cloud models in their organizations, and almost half (47%) use between two and three public Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) services. One of the big drivers of hybrid cloud adoption is AI. Building out generative AI services that create text, code, images, videos, and other elements requires managing large amounts of data that only a flexible and efficient architecture can handle. Balancing workloads between different clouds, such as an internal infrastructure combined with a hyperscale provider, is becoming a necessity.
AI is also expected to have a strong impact on UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) services, enabling the automation of processes, responses and tasks, which will improve productivity and transform communications within organizations. In this sense, integrating hybrid models with 5G networks and decentralized edge computing systems is one of the keys to optimizing speed and reducing latency, which will enable new and innovative uses of the cloud.
We must not lose sight of the fact that in certain industries and application areas, such as autonomous vehicles, drones or hospital equipment, the difference between 1 millisecond and 1 second is crucial. In this context, global spending on edge computing is expected to reach $232 billion in 2024, up 15.4% from 2023, according to data from consulting firm IDC (idc.com/getdoc. jsp ?containerId=prUS51960324).
The rise of cloud repatriation
The general hybridization of IT infrastructures is experiencing an upswing as a countertrend takes place at the same time: cloud repatriation. According to a recent study by Citrix, a division of the Cloud Software Group (techrseries.com/cloud/research-finds-it-leaders-are-choosing-hybrid-cloud-strategiesdue-to-flexibility-cost-economicness-and-42% of U.S. companies surveyed are considering – or have already done so – moving at least half of their cloud-based workloads back to on-premises infrastructure, a phenomenon known as cloud repatriation Survey that asked 350 IT leaders in the US about their current hybrid cloud strategies found that 94% of respondents had been involved in a cloud repatriation project in the last three years.
Unexpected security issues (41%) and high project expectations (29%) were cited as the top reasons for moving some cloud-based workloads back to on-premises infrastructure. Another important factor was failure to meet or meet internal expectations (23%). After reflecting on their experiences, IT leaders found that the most common reasons for cloud repatriation projects were security concerns, unexpected costs, performance issues, compatibility issues and service downtime.
Of course, security is another key consideration when choosing virtual or on-premises resources. Data breaches are a major problem for companies. According to an IBM report (newsroom.ibm.com/2023-07-24-IBM-Report-Half-of-Breached-Organizations-Unwilling-to-Increase-Security-Spend-Despite-Soaring-Breach-Costs) The average global cost of data breaches in 2023 will be $4.45 million, an increase of 15% in three years. The same report shows that 51% of organizations plan to increase their security investments as a result of a breach, including incident planning and response programs, detection tools, and employee training. To protect their data, certain industries have strict data storage regulations that require data to be stored in specific geographical locations or under strict security measures. This is another reason for companies to switch back to local resources these days.
