- Private clouds to hold more and more applications and only highly confidential and mission-critical applications will remain in the local datacentres of the enterprises in the long run.
- IBM believes that vendor lock-in goes against the spirit of true hybrid cloud – which should be open, but also provide the security and control those businesses – especially those in regulated industries – need.
- IBM is committed to making Red Hat OpenShift the default choice for hybrid cloud in the same way that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the default choice for the operating system.
- UAE and Saudi Arabia are updating legislative frameworks to handle hybrid cloud architecture.
IBM believes that the hybrid cloud is already the defacto architecture today and expects to see faster adoption in the Middle East in the next few years as more and more companies and enterprises are moving workloads into hybrid cloud architecture.
Speaking to TechChannel News, Hassan S. Shaheen, Technology Crossbrand Executive at IBM Middle East and Pakistan, said that hybrid cloud is swiftly becoming the dominant force driving change in the IT industry.
He said that most enterprises in the Middle East are still in the adoption and exploration phase where they have some workloads moved to the cloud but still most of their mission-critical and revenue-generating workloads are on-premise.
“Around 80 per cent of the enterprise workloads have yet to move into a hybrid cloud environment but some industries are faster than others in moving due to legislative, security and governance reasons,” he said.
Moreover, he said that some industries are far more advanced than others such as airlines, retailers and telecom operators as they have taken bigger steps into the hybrid cloud architecture than public sector agencies and banks, mostly driven by the legislative constraints that govern those enterprises.
IBM conducted a study on the impact of Covid-19 with input from 3,800 global executives and, 64 per cent said they will shift to more cloud-based business activities and that most of them are already managing 6-15 different clouds.
Bolsters its offerings
Shaheen said that IBM has made big and bold bets to capitalise on the massive opportunity that hybrid cloud represents—$1.2 trillion, according to International Data Corporation – and has significantly bolstered its hybrid cloud capabilities.
The two Gulf Cooperation Council countries – UAE and Saudi Arabia – have witnessed the opening of more datacentres from the tech giants such as Oracle, AWS, SAP, IBM, Alibaba and Microsoft.
However, Shaheen said that UAE and Saudi Arabia are making big steps towards updating their legislative frameworks to handle hybrid cloud architecture, security and data residency issues.
Three years ago, IBM identified ‘hybrid cloud’ as the dominant force in the industry, he said and added that they built a market with many client projects, introduced new technologies and acquired Red Hat in a $34 billion deal in 2019.
“Red Hat Open technologies, combined with our newly launched CloudPaks, gave us the fuel to supercharge our open and secure hybrid cloud platform that cuts across all the places our clients do computing: on-prem, private, and publicly operated public cloud environments,” he said.
With the launch of IBM Cloud for Telecommunications & IBM Cloud for Financial Services, IBM Cloud Satellite, IBM Cloud Paks, and the IBM Cloud Integration Platform, he said that they have complimented their portfolio.
“We strongly believe that the coming years will see specialisation and industry focus and we are ready for it,” he said.
Covid drives hybrid cloud adoption
While studies show that clients find choosing a hybrid cloud approach is 2.5 times more valuable than relying on public cloud alone, he believes that the market and business demand will drive this adoption more than anything else.
“The benefits of hybrid cloud were put to the test in the last 18 months during the pandemic. We could see enterprises that were more advanced on their hybrid cloud journey were more successful. Just by being able to adjust to the new norms faster, being able to sustain a better business continuity standpoint or supporting their workforce and customers remotely and being more agile and innovative to address their market and client needs faster and better,” he said.
However, he said the known challenges of hybrid cloud regarding security and data residency are being addressed more and more.
“With a growing ecosystem of more than 50 technology providers that have committed to onboarding offerings and cloud services, it will help address stringent security, resiliency and compliance requirements,” he said.
Integrating cloud into the existing enterprise security program is not just adding a few more controls or point solutions, he said, but it requires an assessment of the resources and business needs to develop a fresh approach to the culture and cloud security strategy.
Cloud provides over 30% to IBM revenues
“To manage a cohesive hybrid, multi-cloud security program, enterprises would need to establish visibility and control. In the region, we have a specialised team that is working with our customers to define their desired future state, plan their move to cloud securely and execute continuous threat management and resiliency,” Shaheen said.
Private Clouds are currently competing with the local datacentres, he said, on getting more workloads moved and enterprises are going through the exercise of evaluating all aspects of security, availability, cost and ease of use/management.
“I believe, in the long run, private clouds will hold more and more applications and only highly confidential and mission-critical applications will remain in the local datacentres of the enterprises,” he said.
IBM provides a global network of cloud datacentres around the world – including 21 availability zones across seven IBM Cloud regions to help meet performance and deployment requirements and plans to grow this footprint significantly in 2021 and 2022.
He said that the cloud now comprises more than 30 per cent of IBM’s revenues, up from four per cent in 2012.
Research firm Gartner predicts that 80 per cent of enterprises will shut down their traditional datacentres by 2025 but Shaheen believes that this is a very “ambitious prediction”.
“We will see a big shift in the datacentre footprint and usage. I also think that we will possibly see a wave of optimisation rather than total shut down, enterprises and government agencies will push for some model of partnership.
“We can see the start of this happening already in many countries in the region, where PPP (private, public partnership) datacentres are being created to serve certain domains or client sets,” he said.
IBM believes that vendor lock-in goes against the spirit of true hybrid cloud – which should be open, but also provide the security and control those businesses – especially those in regulated industries such as financial services, insurance and telecommunications – need.
Open standards
Shaheen said that open technologies, such as Linux, containers and Kubernetes, are being established as the new standard or fabric that can bridge and tie all the different public and private clouds together.
“These innovations, along with IBM’s more than $24 billion hybrid cloud business, position IBM as the leading provider of open cloud solutions as companies look for an alternative to vendor lock-in and proprietary clouds,” he said.
Moreover, he said that IBM has certified more than 100 software products on Red Hat OpenShift, and has declared OpenShift as the required foundation for all IBM solutions.
“Together, IBM and Red Hat are helping establish Linux, containers, and Kubernetes as the new standard—the fabric that can bridge and tie all the different public and private clouds. We’re committed to making Red Hat OpenShift the default choice for hybrid cloud in the same way that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the default choice for the operating system,” he said.
By combining the power and flexibility of Red Hat’s open, hybrid cloud portfolio and IBM’s technology and deep industry expertise, he said that the ecosystem will also gain access to the open technology tools businesses worldwide need to accelerate their cloud journey.
“IT has become core to the success of most if not all enterprises. Once the CIO understands what is needed to ensure the success of their enterprise then comes the real work. Selecting the right technology partners and setting the appropriate strategies to serve their clients,” he said.
As with all new endeavours, he said that hybrid cloud is no different, challenges will occur but with the right team on board, they will be able to achieve success.
“It is very important to understand the why behind every move and accordingly put the right measurements and success criteria to be able to evaluate the results of this action. So, in a nutshell, start making your move into the cloud by selecting the right workload and having the right team and technology partners around you to support you,” he said.
Related stories:
- Why UAE has become the hotbed for cloud infrastructure players?
- 85% of C-Suite executives in UAE pursuing or planning hybrid cloud strategies in next 12 months.
- Digital transformation and cloud integral in a post-pandemic world.