Most of us are clear on what Cloud Computing is. There are many definitions, but at a high level it’s about providing IT services as a utility over the internet. This can include compute, storage, total infrastructure, applications or even turnkey software.
The beauty of cloud is that in theory, you can consume what you want when you need it and turn it off again when you no longer need it, you pay for what you consume and you avoid building costly on premise infrastructure which potentially can be heavily underutilised.
When you delve in to the detail, there are different types of cloud available, there’s public cloud like that provided by AWS or Azure, then there is private hosted cloud or even private cloud on premise.
Hybrid Cloud is a way to mix and match the various clouds you want, and ideally have a single layer of orchestration over the top. At the current time, there is no one all-encompassing orchestration layer that covers every possible cloud, but in time that will come.
Since late 2016 major analysts have said that cloud is no longer something on the edge of an IT strategy, it must be the centre of every enterprises IT strategy and that can only be achieved with a hybrid.
Cloud is about choice, sometimes you need control over aspects such as storage or security and then on premise private cloud may be best, at other times you need some extra “horsepower” temporarily at which time it’s great to be able to burst into public cloud.
Hyperconvergence is a core technology that helps people build foundations for real hybrid cloud implementations. Hyperconverged infrastructure is based on the technology that makes cloud possible, so it stands to reason it would be an enabler for hybrid cloud.
Hyperconverged simple pack compute, storage and networking closely together and lay an orchestration layer built from software over the top. Based on a clustered node concept, as you need more “power” you simply add nodes into the cluster. It happens without disruption. If this sounds a lot like cloud, it should.
Enabling orchestration between a public cloud and a private cloud built on a hyperconverged platform such as Nutanix is a perfect way to create a hybrid cloud. As an example, Nutanix already have deep technical relations with Microsoft to deliver an Azure consistent cloud environment within an enterprise datacentre. A perfect example of hyperconvergence delivering hybrid cloud.
