Hybrid cloud helps boost performance, manage speed, security: IBM's Viswanath Ramaswamy

Organisations across the world are recognising the important benefits of the cloud, ranging from increased flexibility and scalability to a shift in the cost model from capital expenditures to operating expenses. The move to the cloud is inevitable. With this increased understanding of improved business performance and greater return on investment due to hybrid cloud, organisations in India will spend nearly half of their cloud budget on hybrid over the next three years, highlights IBM's IBV study. A leader in cloud and AI, IBM Hybrid Cloud is said to be secure, interoperable, open and free from vendor lock-in.

"Organisations recognise that the cloud can deliver a range of important benefits, from increased flexibility and scalability to a shift in the cost model from capital expenditures to operating expenses. Further, cloud services give enterprises a competitive advantage by providing the most innovative technology available," says Viswanath Ramaswamy, Vice President, IBM Cloud & Cognitive Software & Services, IBM India/South Asia.

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Hybrid cloud platforms even offer 2.5 times more value than a traditional cloud environment. IBM's approach to hybrid cloud improves on both public and private cloud by offering clients better flexibility and balance. "With hybrid cloud, companies can more effectively manage speed and security, lower latency and drive higher performance. Every application and service can be deployed and managed where it makes the most sense," adds Ramaswamy.

While the value propositions of cloud are plenty, one of the key challenges is to have a centeralised strategy. "We have seen is that without a centralised strategy for cloud-based business transformation, it can expose a business to risks for potential outages, security breaches and escalating costs. Some companies have experimented and implemented so many cloud solutions without interoperability, that they've inadvertently created an inflexible barrier to innovation. Often, their business operations span several geographic locations, each with unique government and regulatory requirements. And their applications and processes are fuelled by multiple data sources," explains Ramaswamy.

However, with the right architecture, these risks can be mitigated. Data can be sourced and applied from any location or form (structured or unstructured). Even workloads, data and virtual machines can be placed where it makes the most sense while being secure and in compliance, particularly for regulated industries.

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IBM is achieving the same with Red Hat OpenShift, which is built on the open technologies of Linux, containers and Kubernetes. It provides a unifying layer - a standard open platform designed to integrate the features and functionality on-premise, on all clouds, and on the edge. It rewrites the basic behaviours and assumptions of IT and redefines how organisations create and deliver value, work, compete and transact. And it provides a strong basis for business and institutional innovation-by creating a lingua franca for data, applications and workflows-where an ecosystem of ideas from customers, suppliers and partners can be brought together.

To name a few, both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are using IBM's Hybrid Cloud. Airtel is adopting an open cloud architecture for all network and containerised workloads. Embedded with AI to automate onboarding and improve monitoring and predictive capabilities for network equipment provider services, third-party services like gaming and remote media production will help create new revenue streams.

Vodafone Idea Limited's new hybrid cloud platform has deployed across distributed cloud microsites across India and its central IT operations. The hybrid cloud platform permits IT and network applications to run on common cloud architecture and deliver return on investment by optimising capital and operations expenses and automation investments across the network and IT application domains.

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