newsroom

It’s a new year and decade — full of plans for digital business transformation.

The progressive leader’s expectation from IT investment has evolved. “Better, faster, cheaper IT” isn’t compelling enough to satisfy the rising demand for new technology deployments. Anticipated business outcomes from IT transformation is the top priority.

IT platform comparisons are very relevant in this scenario. But it’s complicated.

Why IT platform coexistence matters

Few CIOs or CTOs envision a future state where ALL their compute and storage needs are met by one or two public cloud providers. Likewise, few would anticipate that every IT use case is best served by an on-premises IT investment.

So, what’s the best IT infrastructure model for your workloads? Well, it depends on contextually variable criteria. There is no simple answer. Where’s the best place to host a cloud application? Again, that depends on variable criteria.

Your answers to use case-related questions may help you to determine the best solution. Public, private and hybrid cloud models each have benefits. Savvy organizations continue to enhance their own IT infrastructure – the “on-premises data center” asset is essential to their competitive business strategy.

Informed senior executives know a customized IT platform can become very difficult for their competitors to try and replicate. As an example, today’s high-performance servers — such as IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE  — are purpose-built for very large-scale transaction processing applications that require superior data security.

By comparison, x86 commodity server platforms are everywhere and they’re the foundation of most public cloud service platforms. Yes, they have a place in an IT infrastructure “coexistence” plan. That said, more organizations now apply a variable approach to managing their IT spend.

For some trailblazers, their adaptive hybrid IT methodology includes moving selected workloads back to their on-premises data center. They’re not retreating from the journey to cloud services, but now they’re more experienced with the infrastructure alternatives.

The promise of the public cloud benefits can, in certain circumstances, disappoint due to poor performance or unanticipated reoccurring costs. The agile IT organization must embrace an infrastructure deployment methodology that’s inherent flexibility — wisely choosing the best-fit solution for each situation.

Market studies highlight the trend

Back in 2019, Ariel Maislos authored a blog post that summarized findings from IDC market studies that explored the trend of organizations that plan to move workloads and associated data back from a public cloud to their own enterprise data center.

Maislos highlighted the reasons why a public cloud repatriation trend could gain momentum in the future. His points about security, cost and performance concerns will be familiar to informed IT and business leaders.

I agree with his assessment; the edge computing and “micro data center” phenomena are trends that seem to validate the requirement for organizations to keep their options open.

Ongoing evolution of hybrid IT models

What’s the outlook for the transformation of a perpetually evolving IT landscape? One thing now seems certain; assumptions that are predicated on a static IT infrastructure environment are likely to be problematic.

Hybrid IT deployment practices are, naturally, prone to change as new approaches emerge. That’s why CIOs and CTOs must remain fully open to the best-fit enterprise server options.

How to evaluate your IT platform options

Did you know that IBM Systems offers guidance to clients who need help to assess the financial and operational implications of moving their enterprise applications to alternative platforms?

We can assist you to explore the possibilities. Reach out to your IBM representative or Business Partners and request an introduction to our IT Economics Consulting and Research team.

Call us at 1-866-883-8901 | Priority code: IBM Systems

The post The Hybrid IT independence proclamation appeared first on IBM IT Infrastructure Blog.