This year has seen monumental growth in cloud computing and companies are embracing a cloud-first attitude more than ever before. The hybrid cloud computing model allows organizations to leverage the strengths of their current on premise network and augment them with the elasticity and innovations of the cloud. It offers organizations great opportunities, not through new technology exactly, but by a new fresh approach to technology that is continuing to evolve and mature in real time.
Cloud computing has taken the world by storm, coming to a new level of maturity this past year. Known simply as “The Cloud,” it has become a buzzword that is overly used and tossed around inadvertently too often in today’s IT circles. However, “The Cloud” has become a trite and ambiguous concept that is often not fully understood by those who so willingly use the term.
The cloud has come to represent a new ideology in the technological world. In 2001, author Jeremy Rifkin released the book, The Age of Access, which introduced the idea that we are entering a new era in human civilization and business in which ownership of assets is no longer a winning strategy. He argued that as long as you have access to an asset, who owns it is irrelevant. In the book, Rifkin says, “Ownership of physical capital, however, once the heart of the industrial way of life, becomes increasingly marginal to the economic process. Concepts, ideas, and images—not things—are the real items of value in the new economy.
Cloud Computing Drives Online Subscriptions
Think of your favorite Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime subscription. Consumers have enjoyed the benefits of subscribing rather than buying when it comes to items such as a cell phone or a TV satellite dish for many years, but IT services now allow this on a grand scale when it comes to server infrastructure. A business doesn’t need to own a data center any longer, it just needs access to one. As Forbes Magazine wrote, “The world’s most advanced technologies are not only available to large enterprises who can afford to maintain an expensive IT staff, but can be accessed by anybody with an internet connection.” Somehow we have reached a time in which on premise data center with a full IT support staff is no longer an inherent advantage for larger enterprises.
The Hybrid Cloud Drives Identity Management
In the past several years, a new facet of the hybrid cloud has gained huge popularity – Identity Management. The cloud has become a primary method of deploying apps in the form of Software as a Service, or SaaS. SaaS delivers desired applications directly to the users of an organization in pristine form in that the application is always updated, patched and supported by the SaaS provider. The benefits of SaaS are so vast that it is estimated that the average medium to large-size business is now using between 300 and 400 cloud applications.
These new IT services present a huge challenge to organizations as users must authenticate to each one of these separate cloud applications, which greatly complicates password management. Users then document multiple passwords, opening the door to the vulnerability of social engineering attacks to garner passwords by cyber criminals. Many organizations today are utilizing hybrid clouds for the specific purpose of Identity Management or IDaaS.
Having an experienced, collaborative IT solutions partner can help educate you in this innovative approach and ensure that you maximize your investment of time and money. Partnering with a solutions provider with an understanding of not only hybrid cloud computing, but an added understanding of how it can bolster your current network and augment your current resources and efforts will help make your organization more productive, and more profitable as well. Get in touch with WEI to learn how custom solutions can help your organization succeed in 2018.
Next Steps: Ensure your enterprise is prepared to use a hybrid cloud solution for your data center by utilizing our checklist.
