5. Growth Mindset
A Shared Understanding
Growth Mindset
• Takes on more
challenges
• Not concerned
about being
“smart” v “dumb”
• Focused on
developing
abilities
• Resilient in the
face of setbacks
• Realizes feedback
is a gift
Fixed Mindset
• Afraid of learning
• Worried about
failing or at the
very least, not
looking dumb
• Do not take on
challenges but
settle into what’s
comfortable and
where success is
likely
7. Changing Priorities Post-Pandemic
Controlling Complexity & Enabling Agility
53% of Enterprises are using
more cloud resources during
and post-pandemic
(451/S&P Global 4/2021)
Biggest IT Challenge? 39%
say complexity, 33% say
cost. Staffing? Supply
Chain?
49% of enterprises are
now very concerned about
cost savings post-
pandemic
59% of enterprises are
using multi-cloud or hybrid
strategy
20% of abandoned
Devops projects to
focus on other initiatives
39%
20%
49%
53% 59%
10. End-user
expectations
are higher
Role of
today’s IT leader
has expanded
Today’s IT environments are highly
dynamic
Workloads are
larger and more
distributed
Technology is
advancing in
complexity
12. Workload Placement Options
Hybrid IT workloads reside in a mix of on-premises, colo and cloud
locations
Company
owned or
managed
facilities,
offices, or
data centers
3rd party managed data
center. Highly available
facilities & connectivity.
Dedicated cloud
provider hardware or
shared infrastructure,
with control and
visibility of server,
storage, db, and
network services
Multi-tenant virtual
server hosting,
storage, db, and
network services
Managed
infrastructure
and application
components
(e.g. load
balancers,
databases, AI,
ML)
Managed
application
delivered over
the Internet
(e.g. Office365,
SalesForce)
On Premise PaaS SaaS
Colocation IaaS
IaaS
Ease of Scalability OpEx Friendly Decreased Ops Responsibilities
Control & Visibility
CapEx Friendly
Latency & High Throughput
13. Hybrid IT Strategy
On Premise PaaS SaaS
Colocation IaaS
IaaS
Centralized User Base
Higher at Lower Cost
Lowest
HA Provided by Infrastructure
More Options & Control
Easier for Local Dependencies
Highest
Highest
Most Demanding Breadth
Limited Due to Rigidity
Full Responsibility
Highest Burden
Highest CapEx
High Predictability
Distributed User Base
More expensive to achieve
Highest
SLA-based, Lowest Effort
Most Constricted & Dictated
More Complex Cross-Location
Lowest
Lowest
Specialty to Least Demanding
Easiest to Limited
Most Fully Managed
Lowest Burden
No CapEX
Low to High Predictability
Latency
Performance
Scalability
Availability
Technical Requirements
Dependencies
Operational Responsibilities
Control & Visibility
IT Skill Set
Portability
Security
Compliance
Cost Structure
Cost Predictability
14. Edge:
• Real-time data processes,
analysis and action at the source
• Interactive applications
• Low-latency communications with
smart devices/sensors/controllers
(IoT) and access to 5G
• Efficient communication with core
• Off-loading from cloud
• Data caching
Core:
• Big data
• Batch analysis
• Data warehousing
• Machine learning
• Enterprise-wide applications
• Command and control coordination
• Business logic/intelligence
• Disaster recovery
• Archival storage
Edge Data Center Edge Apps
<20 ms
Core Data Center
Workloads Are Becoming More Distributed
From Core Data Centers to Near-Premise Edge Computing
15. Hybrid Workload Placement Criteria
Cost Structure
Cost Predictability
Operational Responsibilities
Control and Visibility
IT Skill Set
Portability
Security
Compliance
Latency
Performance
Scalability
Availability
Technical Requirements
Dependencies
What to consider when deciding where to place a workload
Technical Financial
Operational
16. Enabling Hybrid IT – Not One Size Fits
All
Integrated Workloads to Enable Hybrid IT Solutions and Outcomes
Architecture & Transformation, Optimized Clouds, DevOps, Cybersecurity, Compliance, Disaster
Recovery
On Premise
& Edge
Colocation IaaS
PRIVATE
CLOUD
IaaS
PUBLIC CLOUD
PaaS SaaS
17. But Cloud Transformation Hasn’t Been
Easy…
Source: VMwareJuly 2021Digital Momentum Study; N=639Technology
Decision Makers using 2+Public Clouds
“What challenges have you encountered regarding utilization of multiple Public
Clouds?”
“Risk related to
security, data,
privacy issues.”
“Inconsistent infrastructure
constructs
(APIs, database, network,
security).”
“Complexity in
environment
management
policy.”
“Internal
skills gap.”
“Ability to
optimize cloud
spend.”
18. Hybrid across industries
Transportation
Visual AI, Autonomous
transport, Vehicle
tracking, Advanced
Mapping
Industry &
Agriculture
Industry sensors, visual
QA Autonomous
farming, Water and
irrigation sensors, &
crop management
Smart Cities /
Campuses
Smart Transportation,
Grids, Campus Safety,
Efficiency, Utility and
Water Management
Retail / Lodging
Real-time Customer
Demographics,
Contactless Payments,
Inventory Mgmt.
Health Care
Wearable, Mobile
devices, scanners,
monitoring, in-home
testing, hi-def imaging
Entertainment,
Gaming,
Immersive
experiences
Large format event
experiences, AR / VR,
low latency gaming,
event streaming
SMAC/CDN/Telec
om
Social media, Edge
clouds, reverse CDNs,
Telecom 5G NFV
Organizations that address cloud and hybrid IT decision-making from a workload perspective and successfully place those workloads in the optimum environments can achieve greater flexibility, scalability, security and lower IT costs.
Flexential Professional Services has created a Hybrid IT Strategy Framework to guide workload placement decisions using 14 technical, operational and financial criteria. Read the white paper to understand how to make optimum workload placements and better cloud decisions.
Today’s IT environments are changing rapidly and dramatically.
The technology that’s critical to your business is becoming more complex
Workloads are growing larger and more distributed
Demands are increasing and the expectations are higher than ever
With everything-as-a-service, the role of the IT leader has expanded
To survive in these highly dynamic hybrid IT environments, your business must be flexible and able to adapt quickly.
One size does not fit all
Workloads can be thought of as the applications, servers, data or network services needed to deliver business IT
There are lots of options available to customers today
Infrastructure options range from on-premise (with customers managing everything from the hardware up) all the way to software as a service (with customers just managing their Data use)
Most companies are now fulfilling their infrastructure needs in a hybrid model combining these various options
Workload placement is the process of selecting the right hosting option for a given workload based on:
Operational resources & expertise needed to support those workloads
Technical requirements of the workloads
Business drivers of the organization (business strategy, growth plans, funding models)
The companies that are most successful in workload placement have formal long short/term cloud strategies
Understanding decision criteria and workload hosting options helps us be part of the customer solution and win our fair share of the hybrid IT market
Considerations for workload placements
Business
App uptime
Avail
CX
Time to market
Sec/compliance
Costs
M/A
SLA
RTO
Technical
Performance
Scalability
Agility
Latency –ERP, EOL/S OS, DB,
Recovery
HA
Legacy Apps
SLA
RPO
Each of the different options has different strengths and weaknesses
It’s important to remember that what might be a strength for one customer might be a viewed as a weakness for another. As they move right, they tend to shed responsibility and have the potential to pick up capabilities more easily.
Plus there are other factors such as:
Availability (key thing to remember is their SLA is written such that you need to expect an AZ to go dark)
Budget Predictability
Security Tools/Concerns
“Burstability”
Cost in general
Brand familiarity/reputation
App-Dev vs COTS
Data Gravity
Boomerang research Top 3 – Security, Cost Predictability and overall cost (colo is cheaper at scale).
This is why it’s so important to position HYBRID. Think of it as investment protection and flexibility as needs change.
Manageability – who controls the administration
Where does your data resides – governance laws might dictate this
Do you need to scale/agility?
How often are you app updated? CI/CD
The critical issue for making good workload placement decisions is understanding how to evaluate each workload. Flexential Professional Services uses 14 criteria to analyze a workload and its needs. We have grouped these into 3 categories, and any one criteria could heavily sway the placement decision for a given workload in a given organization. There is no ‘one size fits all’ and as each organization, IT department and workload characteristics are unique.
As we look at the range of hybrid IT workload placement options from on-premises to SaaS, you'll see that Flexential occupies the middle of this diagram with our core services of cloud and colo,
but when you think of Flexential’s place in Hybrid IT — we actually extend outward to offer services to customers with workloads in other locations. We can meet customers where they are and we provide professional services that span across all environments.
Some examples of how Flexential supports hybrid IT include:
We extend private connectivity to public cloud providers and also connect into on-premise systems
We provide hosting to SaaS companies in Flex colo or Flex cloud
We support on-premises IT resiliency with Flexential DRaaS and DR professional services
Professional Services designs, builds and operates DevOps environments – which may be located with public cloud providers,
Professional Services’ transformation, architecture, cloud, cybersecurity and compliance services can span across a customer’s hybrid IT landscape
Transformation in general is never easy, and cloud transformation is no different. Organizations are also grappling with a variety of challenges such as Outdated infrastructure, Monolithic applications, Diverse cloud operating models, Gaps in security – and these all translate to increased requirements on scarce resources. As organizations use more clouds and cloud services in order to meet the diverse needs of their business, and each cloud silo presents unique architectural and operational challenges. At the same time, providing employees with fast, secure access to the apps they need is cumbersome and complex while challenging traditional security models.
Our recent Benchmark Study found executives prioritize the following challenges regarding utilization of multiple clouds:
Risk related to security, data, or privacy issues 25%
Inconsistent infrastructure API, database, network, security constructs 25%
Need to hire or maintain new, specialized skills to support Public Clouds 24%
Ability to manage/ optimize spend 23%
Increased complexity from policies that manage individual environments 23%