The question is not whether a business should adopt hybrid cloud computing, but when it will do so.
So said Ulli Reyneke, cloud, analytics, mobility, security and social leader at IBM SA, at the IBM Hybrid Cloud Forum in Johannesburg yesterday.
Whereas data used to be used for reporting and recording the past, it is now being used to predict the future, said William Yates, general manager for IBM global financing in the Middle East and Africa.
"Data is becoming the world's new natural resource," added Maurice Blackwood, director of systems hardware at IBM SA. What is important is not merely possessing it, but harvesting and implementing it to improve a company's performance, he explained.
Hybrid cloud offers numerous advantages over "regular" cloud technologies, as it enhances business agility by allowing organisations to optimise their cloud use, said Owen Farrow of IBM Global Business Services.
Hybrid cloud is the combined form of private and public clouds, and allows critical data to be housed within a company's private cloud, while other, less sensitive data is stored more accessibly in a public cloud. This allows businesses to benefit from the considerably lower cost of public cloud, while accessing the security of a private cloud for their more vulnerable data.
However, hybrid cloud is not free from security risks, said Kevin Mckerr, senior security specialist at IBM. Cloud security is made up of a myriad of components which can prove very tricky to successfully interweave, such as identity and access, data, apps, fraud protection and threat research, he explained.
Another challenge with hybrid cloud usage is software licensing, added Blackwood. "We have some bloodbaths [with software providers] taking place," he said, referring to the complaint that many software licensers charge for using their software in the whole cloud, and not just a small section thereof.
Cost is a further challenge for companies looking to expand their cloud and data infrastructures, said Yates. Businesses' budgets are not growing with the same rapidity as the technology they are using, he explained.
However, there are a number of payment options available, including loans, IBM project financing, fair market value lease and IBM global asset recovery services, he said.
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