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ROI drives hybrid cloud adoption

Regina Pazvakavambwa
By Regina Pazvakavambwa, ITWeb portals journalist.
Barcelona, 16 Oct 2014

In an agile world where software is disrupting businesses, organisations are looking to their own IT capabilities to either disrupt or be disrupted.

So said Richard Munro, chief technologist and technical director for vCloud Air, EMEA, at VMware, during the VMworld 2014 conference in Barcelona.

Munro said adopting a hybrid approach to cloud computing allows businesses to be more flexible, and manage their workloads between on premises and off premises systems.

He added that with hybrid cloud, companies have the capability to move seamlessly between public and private platforms.

Munro believes the hybrid approach is the answer to a challenge that has been plaguing the IT industry - reducing cost and provisioning of workloads more quickly. Also, adopting hybrid cloud will turn IT complexity of connecting different hardware architectures together into a one click model.

He pointed out that if a company's processes are not automated, "hybrid cloud is automation on rent - companies do not have to build automation systems but can just consume the automated capabilities found on the hybrid cloud platform".

Munro also said business is only interested in the liquid economy and whether hybrid cloud is a justifiable return on investment. He pointed out that CIOs have to justify IT infrastructure investment as a business case and since there is less investment in hardware, there is business cost reduction with hybrid cloud.

In the South African market, the cloud business is doubling year-on-year. VMware, through its partner ecosystem and network of service providers, is helping business understand the advantages of hybrid cloud, said Mark Reynolds, partner sales management at VMware SA.

According to Reynolds, in SA, more businesses are taking their workloads into the cloud using service providers, which is why VMware keeps investing in its partners.

He pointed out VMware has put more effort in research and development functions so the capabilities it delivers are relevant to the whole of the service provider ecosystem.

Although the adoption of hybrid is slower in SA, other emerging markets like Nigeria and Kenya are adopting the technology faster, said Reynolds.

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