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Enterprises increasingly implement multiple cloud solutions to support a diverse array of workloads. They tap into public cloud services, build private clouds and construct hybrid clouds in an effort to optimize the balance of performance, control and cost for each application. They also can gain resiliency, reliability and flexibility benefits when strategically distributing applications, software and assets across multicloud environments. It’s not surprising, then, that 98 percent of organizations expect to be using multiple hybrid clouds within three years.¹

Unfortunately, many organizations underestimate the challenges of managing a multicloud environment. According to a recent survey, the average enterprise uses nearly five cloud environments to address a variety of needs.² Symantec reports that enterprises often deploy more than 1,000 cloud apps.³ Though IT staff members might spend a little less time managing these cloud resources than they do managing traditional IT environments, the complexity of a multicloud world often prevents administrators from focusing on more strategic projects.

IBM Power Systems enterprise servers based on IBM POWER9 processors—for example, IBM Power Systems E950 and Power Systems E980 servers—help organizations simplify their multicloud experience and maximize the benefits of various cloud implementations. Building private clouds with Power Systems servers allows them to establish consistency in the way they manage and consume all of their cloud resources. Businesses can enhance the agility and flexibility of multiple clouds while controlling costs and complexity.

Consolidating workloads and protecting data

Creating a private cloud with the Power Systems platform and IBM PowerVM virtualization helps minimize the data center footprint. On a single server, enterprises can deploy multiple operating systems—such as IBM AIX, IBM i and Linux—and multiple workloads that include highly data-intensive workloads such SAP HANA. A single Power Systems server can have up to eight production SAP HANA instances.⁴ They gain the resource flexibility of the cloud while minimizing both capital and operational costs.

PowerVM also helps safeguard data. It offers robust security capabilities and has no reported vulnerabilities.⁵ PowerVM compresses and encrypts partition data being sent from source to target systems, thereby protecting the workloads even as organizations move them across systems.

Easing infrastructure administration and enhancing flexibility

With the Power Systems platform, enterprises have several options for constructing a private cloud. For example, they can set up an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) environment using IBM PowerVC, a custom OpenStack solution or create a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) with IBM Hyperconverged Systems powered by Nutanix.

Built on OpenStack, PowerVC is an advanced virtualization and cloud management offering that can significantly reduce administrative challenges for virtualized and cloud-based environments. An intuitive user interface facilitates rapid deployment of cloud resources and simple, efficient ongoing management—no specialized skills are required.

PowerVC gives organizations the flexibility to automate allocation of resources to improve utilization and control costs. When scaling a private cloud becomes necessary, they can take advantage of Capacity on Demand capabilities available to Power Systems such as Power Enterprise Pools.

Integration with higher-level cloud orchestrators provides a path to simplifying multicloud infrastructure management. For example, by integrating PowerVC with VMware vRealize, IT organizations gain a single-pane-of-glass experience when managing virtual machines (VMs) across multiple clouds. These clouds range from POWER9- and x86-based private clouds to IBM Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform public services.

Streamlining application management

IBM Cloud Private (ICP) is a Kubernetes-based container platform that enables enterprises to easily modernize traditional applications and move them to the cloud. They can use ICP to capitalize on microservices and other tools for developing new cloud-native applications and to deploy existing VM-based applications such as IBM Db2, IBM WebSphere Application Server, SAP R/3 and Oracle Database into their cloud environment. ICP allows organizations to add these applications to a single catalog that also includes container-based applications such as WebSphere Liberty, new versions of Db2, MongoDB and more.

Using the open source Terraform framework, ICP enables organizations to migrate workloads between their private cloud and any public cloud that supports Terraform. They can construct an efficient hybrid environment and deploy each workload on its optimal infrastructure.

Moving the enterprise forward in a multicloud journey

As your organization expands its multicloud environment, you’ll need ways to streamline the management and consumption of resources to fully realize the promise of cloud computing. By building your next private cloud with the Power Systems platform based on POWER9 processors, you can capitalize on tools that help simplify your entire multicloud experience.

Visit ibm.com/it-infrastructure/power/enterprise to learn more about why IBM Power Systems enterprise servers offer the right foundation for multicloud environments.

¹ IBM Institute of Business Value – A field guide to multicloud management

² RightScale State of the Cloud Report, 2018

³ Eight Essentials: Rethinking Security for the Cloud Generation, Symantec, December 2017

⁴ SAP Technical Note #2230704 (link resides outside ibm.com)

⁵ National Vulnerability Database, National Institute of Standards and Technology, July 2018

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