Over the past decade, the cloud has transformed how businesses deploy and manage their IT infrastructure. The scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency of public cloud solutions like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud have driven widespread adoption. According to a , a growing number of companies are now moving certain workloads back on-premises-a trend known as cloud repatriation or “unclouding.”

As a cloud solutions architect at WEI, I’ve observed that while the public cloud offers significant benefits for many use cases, it’s not always the optimal solution for every application. In fact, customers regularly ask me about the potential for repatriating certain workloads back on-premises. Let’s look into the things you need to consider before implementing a cloud repatriation strategy.

When Cloud Repatriation Makes Sense

An found that 80% of respondents had repatriated workloads from public clouds in the past year, citing issues like security, costs, and performance. Repatriating workloads is a strategic decision; it’s about aligning IT resources with business objectives.

What public cloud solutions offer may sound attractive, but there are specific scenarios where on-premises infrastructure can provide a competitive edge.

1. Predictable, stable workloads: For applications with consistent usage that run 24/7, the pay-as-you-go cloud model can be more expensive than dedicated on-prem infrastructure. Repatriating these workloads can provide significant cost savings.
2. Data-intensive workloads: Applications that process large volumes of data or require frequent network communication between components may experience higher latency and data transfer costs in the cloud compared to a local data center.
3. Regulatory compliance: Industries with strict data residency or security requirements, such as finance and healthcare, may find it easier to meet compliance standards with on-premises infrastructure where they have complete control over data location and handling.
4. Avoiding lock-in: Committing to a single cloud platform long-term comes with risks. A hybrid IT model provides more flexibility to use different clouds and on-prem resources for different purposes.

It’s essential to consider that running the wrong workloads in suboptimal cloud configurations compared to an on-premises environment. Ultimately, determining whether to repatriate workloads requires a careful assessment of your organization’s specific needs and circumstances.

Watch: Capitalizing on the cloud with Nutanix, WEI, and the Microsoft commercial marketplace

Key Risks And Pitfalls Of Cloud Repatriation

Crafting a successful cloud repatriation strategy demands a meticulous evaluation of an organization’s unique requirements and objectives. While potential cost reductions, performance gains, and increased control are enticing, organizations must also carefully weigh the associated challenges.

1. Lack of a clear strategy: Jumping into cloud repatriation without clearly defining your goals is a recipe for failure. It’s critical to evaluate the current cloud environment and dial in factors like cost, performance, security, and compliance to determine which specific workloads are candidates to bring back in-house.
2. Complexity and the cost of data migration: Moving large volumes of data and refactoring applications for on-prem environments is complex. Many organizations underestimate the technical challenges involved and can incur high costs — including cloud egress fees.
3. Loss of cloud benefits: Repatriated workloads may lose out on some key cloud advantages like scalability, agility, ease of updates, and advanced services, which could impact efficiency and reliability in the long run.
4. Increased infrastructure management burden: Moving back on-prem means the organization is again fully responsible for deploying, maintaining, and securing the infrastructure, requiring significant IT resources and skills that may be lacking. Organizations must invest in personnel, infrastructure, and processes to effectively manage and maintain on-premises systems. This can be resource-intensive and requires ongoing attention.
5. Potential performance issues: Ensuring repatriated workloads perform well and are highly available on-prem requires careful capacity planning and building resilient architectures, which can be challenging.
6. Compliance and security risks: This should be the top priority throughout the cloud repatriation process. The on-premises environment needs to be properly configured, monitored, and maintained to ensure compliance with data privacy regulations and protect against cyber threats. Any lapses in security or compliance during migration can have severe consequences.

Success hinges on a balanced approach, considering the organization’s specific needs and the potential benefits and drawbacks of both cloud and on-premises environments. To avoid challenges that may arise in moving your workload back on-prem, a well-thought-out strategy and meticulous execution are essential for achieving desired outcomes.

Watch: AWS Security Essentials With Keith Lafaso

Selecting A Partner For Your Cloud Repatriation Journey

To fully realize the benefits of cloud repatriation for your enterprise, partnering with experienced professionals who can walk you through the process and provide ongoing support can be invaluable.

At WEI, we understand the complexities of this approach. Our expertise lies in developing and executing tailored repatriation strategies that minimize risks and optimize outcomes, such as:

• Conducting a thorough assessment of your current cloud environment and business drivers to determine which workloads are candidates for repatriation.
• Developing a detailed migration plan that addresses timelines, costs, application refactoring, security, and compliance requirements.
• Designing and implementing a modern, cloud-compatible on-premises environment to support the repatriated workloads, leveraging technologies like Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and software-defined storage.
  • Nutanix’s HCI solution combines compute, storage, virtualization, and networking into an integrated platform that simplifies management and enables easy scalability.
  • Nutanix’s provides a software-defined storage layer with high performance and flexible provisioning.
• Providing knowledge transfer and training to your IT staff on managing and optimizing the new hybrid environment.
• Delivering ongoing managed services to offload day-to-day infrastructure responsibilities, allowing your team to focus on innovation.

WEI actively guides you through the cloud repatriation process, enabling informed decisions, optimizing your IT infrastructure, and achieving your business goals. Our comprehensive approach ensures a smooth transition, minimizes disruptions, and delivers long-term value.

Final Thoughts

The ideal IT strategy for most organizations today involves a combination of public cloud solutions and on-premises infrastructure. By thoroughly evaluating your workloads and leveraging the right expertise, you can build a hybrid IT environment that maximizes the benefits of cost efficiency, cloud performance, security, and compliance.

The public cloud will undoubtedly remain a critical part of the enterprise IT landscape. However, as the repatriation trend and my customer conversations show, organizations must continually re-evaluate their cloud strategy to optimize cost, performance, and control.

WEI can help you navigate this complex landscape. With our expertise, combined with technologies like HCI and software-defined storage, we empower your business to develop a successful cloud repatriation strategy and find the perfect balance between cloud and on-premises solutions.

Next Steps: WEI, an AWS Select Tier Services Partner, collaborates closely with customers to identify their biggest challenges and develop comprehensive cloud solutions. WEI emphasizes customer satisfaction by leveraging AWS technologies to enhance development, maintenance, and delivery capabilities.

Download our free solution brief below to discover WEI’s full realm of AWS capabilities.

The post Is Cloud Repatriation Right For Your Business? A Strategic Guide To Successful Implementation appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

In the competitive world of technology, one of the biggest challenges for IT leaders is adapting to evolving tactics and changes in network connectivity. This is similar to professional sports, as offensive and defensive schemes often change during a season due to trending playbook wrinkles. Team leaders that deploy dated scheming eventually fall behind in on-field play and their win-loss record will reflect this. In the world of IT, outdated network architectures and middleware lead to more serious burdens with hindered device management and security. As a result, many enterprises can’t fully enjoy the benefits of cloud technologies and digital transformation.

Just as there are sports teams behind the curve, there are companies falling behind in the era of multi-cloud networks and hybrid architectures. These enterprises still rely on legacy network topologies, technologies, and middleware that served them well for more than a decade. Consequently, they are unable to fully exploit the benefits of their acquired cloud technologies. For instance, many organizations still rely on legacy hub-and-spoke networks that cannot accommodate the dynamic workloads and diverse data flows that dominate the modern enterprise. 

Other IT leaders are still relying on scattered VPN tunnels that are highly inflexible and reduce application performance. Many are also burdened with middleboxes, in the form of routers, firewalls, VPN appliances, etc. These elements require individual configurations and maintenance, adding to the workload of overwhelmed IT teams.

A New Game

IT leaders are searching for a new way of doing things. This includes routing traffic and robust security that doesn’t disrupt business operations. In this era of multi-cloud networks and hybrid architectures, Juniper’s provides a game-changing solution. The integrated service presents an entirely software-based platform to seamlessly merge with your existing setup, eliminating the need for complex and expensive forklift upgrades.

The Need For A Session Smart Network

With Juniper’s solution, your network becomes responsive and efficient, enabling seamless communication and data flow in your organization. This empowers your business to embrace cloud technologies, modernize your network infrastructure, and adapt to evolving challenges effortlessly.

Juniper Session Smart SD-WAN brings a plethora of benefits that can revolutionize your business and propel you ahead toward digital transformation. Here are some of the trending benefits that stood out for us:

1. Reduced Operational Expenses: Juniper Session Smart SD-WAN streamlines operations by minimizing labor-intensive tasks like manual configurations. As a result, companies enjoy significant cost savings.
2. Enhanced Network Structure: The platform facilitates easy access to SaaS-based applications through its efficient and effective network structure. Enterprises can then enjoy smoother and faster access to cloud-based services, enhancing overall productivity and user experience.
3. Streamlined Network Design: Juniper Session Smart SD-WAN offers an optimized solution for utilizing SaaS-based applications, ensuring data flows seamlessly and elevating the overall network performance. This opens the door to smoother and faster access to cloud-based services, improving efficiency and productivity across your entire network infrastructure.
4. Effortless Onboarding: The implementation process is quick and cost-effective. With zero-touch provisioning and an onboard process that automatically configures itself, your organization can seamlessly adapt to a new network setup.
5. Simplified Management: Network management is effortless with Juniper’s comprehensive LAN/WAN/SD-WAN solution, and the best part is all of it can be found in a single cloud platform. Their streamlined Wi-Fi points, switches, and SD-WAN gateway devices optimize resource allocation and empower your organization to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Juniper Session Smart takes routing to a new level by intelligently aligning workloads with session policies and network status, resulting in a 50% improvement in bandwidth utilization. Session Smart SD-WAN’s tunnel-free architecture ensures service-centered performance, simplified operations, and .

AI-Powered Network Assurance

Juniper AI WAN Assurance, powered by , is an extensive solution that brings real-time analytics, proactive anomaly identification, and swift issue resolution to your network.

Through continuous telemetry data collection and event correlation, Juniper SD-WAN directs sessions with performance and security SLAs in mind. This approach enhances network efficiency for an optimal user experience, making your business operations more productive and responsive.

Data from multiple sources, including Juniper Mist Access Points, Switches, Session Smart Routers, and Firewalls, provides end-to-end insight into user experiences. These devices work with Mist AI to optimize user experiences from client-to-cloud, covering tasks such as:

• Automated event correlation
• Root cause identification
• operations
• Network assurance
• Proactive anomaly detection

Additionally, – Juniper’s AI-driven virtual network assistant – empowers your team with deep insights and fast remediation for network teams. With Juniper AI WAN Assurance and Marvis’ assistance, your network gains real-time analytics. That way, your team can maximize network performance and address challenges proactively.

Final Thoughts

If your network is suffering from sluggishness and unresponsiveness due to outdated legacy architecture, it’s time for a game-changing move. With Juniper’s innovative solutions at your fingertips, you can bid farewell to the limitations of legacy systems and unlock the true potential of modern networking. Embrace Juniper’s Session Smart SD-WAN to revamp your network performance and ensure seamless responsiveness.

Speak with one of our experts at WEI to learn more about the power of Juniper’s Session Smart Network and AI-driven network assurance. We can provide valuable advice to empower your business with a more efficient and cost-effective network structure. Don’t let your network hold you back. Take charge and propel your business to new heights with Juniper’s Session Smart SD-WAN.

Next Steps: This white paper by WEI identifies how Juniper Networks’ location-based networking helps higher education institutes overcome complex technology challenges. Readers will better identify:

• Concerns of higher education IT professionals
• Why network infrastructure is a differentiator
• Challenge of improving remote experiences
• Value of a virtual network assistant

The post Top 5 Reasons to Embrace Juniper Network’s AI-Driven SD-WAN appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

With generative text programs and image generators doing things many never thought possible, many industry leaders have focused on the application of AI technologies in content creation. Unfortunately, there is a darker application for artificial intelligence technologies. Ultimately, these complex systems are tools, and – like any tool – they can do a lot of damage in the wrong hands. In no place is that truer than in the practice of cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity is more of an arms race than ever before, and if your enterprise can’t stay ahead of cyber criminals, a malicious event is around the corner. For that reason, it is important for businesses and IT teams to step up protection as technology and attacks evolve.

Thankfully, longstanding cybersecurity providers like Fortinet offer a unifying AI-based security operating system to span the entire distributed security fabric. The latest FortiOS 7.4 eliminates the need to choose between performance and protection, allowing organizations to focus on innovation while maintaining safety. The system’s AI-based threat detection provides extensive control throughout the extended attack surface, guaranteeing secure operations and reducing risk.

Let’s examine the features that make FortiOS 7.4 an essential part of your network security strategy.

Unified Hybrid Network Security Management

As networks and hybrid environments evolve, so too should your secure networking approaches. To maintain optimal and unified security, organizations must explore cutting-edge technologies like hybrid mesh firewalls to provide a converged approach that delivers comprehensive security policy controls between workloads and users.

According to Gartner, the adoption rate of hybrid mesh firewalls is expected to increase, as of organizations will employ multiple firewall deployments by 2026. As such, it is important to rely on a provider that offers a centralized management solution – such as – to oversee the enterprise network across various firewall deployments, both on-premises and in the cloud. This kind of solution should deliver consistent security, management, and analytics throughout the hybrid network and integrate Secure SD-WAN, Secure WLAN/LAN, Universal ZTNA, and a comprehensive SASE solution.

Early Detection And Real-Time Responses To Cyberattacks

Enterprise hybrid network security has evolved from relying on error-prone human intelligence. AI-powered threat intelligence platforms offer capabilities to identify and fix vulnerabilities and misconfigurations across a network. These capabilities are designed to meet current and future cyber threats.

In addition to AI-powered threat intelligence, the latest innovations in endpoint security, SOC automation, and application security have better enabled businesses to build their own self-defending hybrid network ecosystems. These enhancements allow businesses to defend against even the most sophisticated and fast-moving cyber-attacks such as targeted ransomware and advanced persistent threats. These comprehensive solutions ensure companies stay ahead of attackers and provide data and reputation protection against weaponized AI.

Access To An Efficient Risk Reduction Solution

Staying updated with state-of-the-art cyber-physical and industrial control system (ICS) risk reduction solutions enable various OT and SOC teams to effectively analyze and respond to any threat quickly. One solution, for example, comes from FortiOS 7.4’s which offers a dedicated dashboard to view real-time threat visibility features aligned to the MITRE ATT&CK for ICS and OT-specific threat analysis. The result is a faster response time for converged OT and IT environments, keeping your organization ahead of constantly evolving cyber threats.

Fortinet’s Comprehensive Hybrid Network Security Solution

As cyberattacks continue to grow in number and sophistication, businesses need a security solution that supports their digital innovation strategy while keeping pace with cyber threats. is designed to provide an automatic and multi-pronged response to cyber threats. Through years of experience and constant research and development, Fortinet continues to innovate and provide robust protection and improved performance in secure networking and management.

For a comprehensive cybersecurity measure, WEI recommends FortiOS 7.4 to enterprises seeking to secure their hybrid networks. Contact us today and let our team of experts empower your business to achieve your hybrid network security goals.

Next steps: Curious about what your business can do right now to make the most of your hybrid workforce? Download our to learn more about how you can improve the efficiency of your team.

The post FortiOS 7.4: Unpacking The New Hybrid Network Security Update appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Hybrid work solutions. That’s a term that can make network administrators a little queasy if their hybrid workforce is consistently submitting IT support tickets for one common issue or another. Granted, the term “hybrid work solutions” was never really tossed around IT departments until just a few years ago. Now, it is the new standard for both your established workforce and those applying to vacant positions.

In the post-pandemic modern world, enterprises have experienced a rise in hybrid workers as the number of individuals working exclusively at home have continued to decrease. At a high level, the hybrid model serves as a happy medium for in-office and at-home preferences. to get work done from multiple locations, so creating a productive experience for them no matter where they are is your IT team’s ongoing priority.

Flexibility is the name of the game. According to a , 52% of employees want their employers to adopt hybrid work solutions. Employees recognize that there are times when working on-prem makes total sense as it fosters teamwork and collaboration, but they still want to retain the ability to work remotely for those times when location is an irrelevant factor. Because flexibility is so highly valued by professionals today, companies can use hybrid work models to attract and retain talent. It is also a way to lower costs while sustaining organizational productivity at the same time.

This is all great in theory, but what happens when the rubber meets the road? Are you, as an IT leader, ensuring your team delivers on a hybrid solution that satisfies all enterprise end users?

Dell Has Your Required Hybrid Work Solutions

Dell refers to today’s agile workforce as the Do-Anything-From-Anywhere World. To pull that off, businesses must ensure that their hybrid workers have the right tools for the job. That’s why Dell has placed such an incredible emphasis on ensuring they have the right portfolio of intelligent computing devices, accessories, software, and services that not only foster agility, but also facilitates greater productivity and security. That starts with offering persona-based PCs to satisfy the different needs of multiple employee roles.

Persona-Based Solutions

Workers need a complete endpoint solution to ensure they can work both autonomously and collaboratively. To do this, Dell is empowering their PCs with the power of AI. Dell Optimizer is an integrated AI software suite that provides intelligent privacy features to conceal sensitive information within unsecure environments. It features the world’s first simultaneous multi-network connection that allows users to connect to two wired or wireless networks at once for faster data transfers and downloads. Dell Optimizer can even analyze a worker’s immediate surroundings and utilize neural-noise cancellation technology to ensure that remote communicative sessions are audibly clear and pristine.

Flexibility at the Enterprise Level

Enterprise leaders must always remind themselves that flexibility isn’t just a demand from clients. Forward-minded companies must also be agile enough to quickly adapt to the fast-changing dynamic business environments of today. That’s a fancy way of saying you must support your workforce, too. Are you certain you have the right technology infrastructure in place for the coming years? Do you know how much storage capacity and processing power you will need in 2023 or 2024? Think about how useless the forecasts you made in 2019 for the coming year were because of the pandemic and supply chain challenges. The old way of capitalizing large infrastructure deployments is simply outdated.

Companies can no longer continue the expensive practice of overprovisioning and investing in long-term fixed assets – this is far too risky. Companies need adaptive technology solutions that provides flexibility in resource allotment and finance allocation. That’s why Dell Apex Flex on Demand is the right solution at the right time.

What is APEX Flex on Demand?

gives you the ability to not only acquire the right technology you need but to also scale the right amount, so you only pay for what you use. We aren’t talking about a cloud-first solution, but you are financing in a similar fashion to the cloud. Remember, we’re still talking about allocating storage, server, hyper converged infrastructure, and data protection services on-prem. Apex Flex on Demand threads the needle to meet the balance of cost and flexibility in a way that was unimaginable just a few years ago.

What you’re paying for isn’t hardware or software. You pay for actual capacity usage. Whether it’s a server or a storage repository, utilization is comprised of two components: Committed capacity and buffer capacity. Our team will help you establish what your fixed committed capacity should be and how much buffered capacity will be required in the future. You aren’t billed for that buffer by default, but if the need arises for it, you instantly have access to it. Because buffered capacity is billed at a higher rate, you can modify the capacity ratio to adjust to workloads that have increased beyond the initial committed capacity to reduce costs.

Deployment and Payment Made Simple

Dell delivers and deploys your desired technology on-prem according to best practice and configured with your predicted capacity ratio. Raw and usable capacity data is measured throughout each day to create a daily and monthly average using locally installed software. This usage data is then securely uploaded to the Dell Financial Services Database where it is validated, verified, and processed by a billing specialist. Reports are then made available to the customer for validation prior to payment. Some of the benefits that customers have realized include the following:

• A 25% lower storage acquisition cost
• Deploying new storage capacity proved 92% faster
• Costs due to unplanned outages fell by 64%

If these positives are not enough, please consider this: While there are similar solutions abound, Dell is the only solution provider that caps monthly at 85% usage of total installed capacity.

Conclusion

You can refer to it by a variety of “as-a-Service” connotations. The best way to sum up Dell’s Flex on Demand offering may be Innovation-as-a-Service. It’s just another example of how Dell is providing the right hybrid work solutions that companies need for both now and in the future. It’s time for you to ensure that your business objectives are satisfied in a totally dynamic world.

Next Steps: that explains how Dell Technologies has elevated the hybrid work experience for both end users and IT administrators. We focus on the perspectives of privacy, connectivity, and collaboration.

The post Hybrid Work Solutions: Are You Delivering? appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Just as the AI-driven app on your smartphone navigates you to a new destination, IT leaders also believe there should be an AI-driven app that assists with managing a self-driving network. Well, turns out there is such an app available for that, and it is called , a recognized leader in AI for IT operations (AIOps).

Mist AI utilizes AI and machine learning (ML) to automate many of the meticulous tasks that are traditionally performed manually by network administrators. It goes one step further than automation, however, because it is also driven by the intelligence that allows it to proactively address network issues before they arise. It doesn’t take long to draw the similarities between Mist AI and the smartphone you are using to read this blog article:

• Just as a navigation app offers you the visibility to see accidents and traffic delays ahead of you, Mist AI provides insights into your network operations throughout your entire hybrid IT estate. Mist alerts you of potential problems and bottlenecks before they result in network outages.
• Like your smartphone, Juniper Mist maps your network traffic using the most efficient route to help ensure optimized workload performance.
• In similar fashion to your navigation app, Juniper Mist AI utilizes natural language processing (NLP) that includes a conversational interface along with prescriptive actions.

In other words, the same empowering intelligence that you depend on to maximize your driving experience is now available to IT leaders to help improve the experience of network devices, operators, and end users. In fact, you can even use the Marvis Android app to obtain a client-level view of your network.

Full Visibility for the Road Ahead

While there are similarities between the two, Juniper Mist AI goes much deeper than event notifications and problem alerts. It offers root cause analysis of a problem so that you can properly eradicate it in efficient fashion. As a result, this eliminates having to surf through endless logs trying to identify the hidden clue to a persistent issue that plagues the network. Causal relationships are identified, saving countless hours for your IT support staff.

Imagine having a cloud service for your enterprise that integrates with all wired and wireless network infrastructure devices. This would give you increased visibility and manageability of your switches, IoT devices, and wireless access points. Juniper switches, such as the , are cloud-ready and can be managed exclusively through the Juniper Mist portal. This simplifies the onboarding and configuration processes. This type of cloud-based management system is imperative for today’s complex networks that incorporate hybrid architectures and accommodate remote work strategies.

More Than Just Visibility

The complexity that hybrid architectures and remote work strategies have added to enterprises today have created other challenges other than visibility. Controller-based monolithic management systems cannot accommodate the expansive number of workspaces found in today’s networks. Fortunately, AIOps is about more than just visibility, anomaly detection and intelligent alerting – it also provides the automatic remediation of security or IT service problems. No more calling in personnel for a problem that has been identified during off-hours – Mist AI displaces your dependency on manual troubleshooting tasks, resulting in a network that is more predictable and features measurable network performance gains.

Take Network Performance to the Next Level

IT leaders used to measure network performance by its percentage of uptime, but those metrics have exceeded far beyond just connectivity. Just as drivers today won’t tolerate sluggish performance when it comes to their automobile, end users today are no longer tolerant to computing latency. You need a network that is optimized with AIOps to enhance the user experience. According to Juniper, there are three types of dramatic results you can witness in a self-driving network driven by AIOps:

• A reduction in IT support tickets by over 90%
• The ability to configure 500 sites in less than 5 minutes
• A reduction in technical staff visits to branch locations by 85%

Today, network performance is no longer based on just uptime. It is about network-driven performance. The success of a network is only measured by the satisfaction of its users.

Interact With Marvis

One might incorrectly assume that such an all-encompassing management service driven by ML analytics would require a highly technical command line or scripting interface. Instead, it’s as easy as talking to In the same way that consumers are growing accustomed to verbally interacting with Alexa or Siri, Marvis silently drives Mist AI in the background. Marvis understands simple questions and addresses them with from years of enterprise troubleshooting experience. IT staff members can query Marvis without prior knowledge of the management dashboard because Marvis reacts to verbalized intentions, not CLI commands.

Marvis can quickly become an extension of your IT team, augmenting their capabilities by taking over repetitive and routine tasks, allowing your IT staff to focus on more value-driven activities. Marvis gathers data from across the enterprise spectrum to provide client-to-cloud insights regarding baselining and anomaly detection. Marvis empowerment is transforming how IT teams engage with the enterprise today.

Conclusion

Gone are the days of relying on your coffee-stained road map to get you from A to B with no real indication of required drive time. The infusion of AI at the consumer level has changed the way we lead our lives and the smartphone apps we rely on. Thanks to AIOps, the approach to how IT leaders manage their networks has also changed. Self-driving networks are here to stay, as we continue to witness its unquestioned benefits. It is time for your IT team to discover how AIOps can transform your company with the self-driving network experience as well.

NEXT STEPS: To better understand why AI should be the next step in your digital transformation journey, download and read our new white paper, It uncovers:

• Network operational benefits
• Where IT leaders stand after incremental implementation of AIOps
• Business areas where AI flourishes

The post Discover the Self-Driving Network That Juniper Mist Delivers appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

As another year has concluded, we have reached that time to review the IT trends of 2021. Most IT professionals could use an extra minute to catch their breath as last year continued to push many IT departments due to the pandemic’s outbreak in 2020. To gain some perspective on our year-long journey, we sat down with two senior executives at WEI, David Fafel, and Greg Labrie, to get their perspectives on the relevant IT trends that came about in 2021. We also pulled data from a commissioned study we did in partnership with concerning the state of digital transformation in 2021. The study involved an audience of IT decision makers (ITDMs) across multiple industries that provided insightful and surprising information concerning their IT initiatives in 2021.

Remote Work Transitions to Hybrid Work

Could anyone have predicted where we are now when it comes to workspace utilization? While so many organizations implemented remote work strategies overnight, they most likely operationalized these same strategies as a temporary stopgap. As many people return to their desk, companies are now utilizing traditional office space as more of a “touchdown” area for employees to congregate during select days of the week. Typical activities include team building, brainstorming, client interaction, departmental meetings, etc. For many in the workforce, this new concept is a welcome change, thus leading to the hybrid work model’s rising popularity. Still, it involves working remotely, which invokes change in so many other areas. For IT, it means that connectivity has now shifted to the employee’s home, wherever that may be.

In turn, companies that have adjusted to a scaled mobile workforce have also achieved a dynamic recruiting advantage over their competitors. During the current labor shortage, these forward-thinking companies are recruiting talent far outside their local area because they realize employees can be productive no matter where they reside. If you don’t have employees in your traditional building any longer, you’ve also essentially shifted some of the network and connectivity costs to the employee. It has also freed IT personnel, at least somewhat, from some of their usual support duties as employees have become more self-sufficient with their own IT needs. We use the term “somewhat” because the 80/20 rule comes into play; twenty percent of a company’s personnel will always need help and that select group is consuming a lot more time to remotely support them as internal IT doesn’t have control of these remote workspaces.

Zero-Trust Networks Taking Shape

In 2021, enterprises realized that their expedient transition to remote work architectures required revaluation as remote work permeated within their culture. In an environment in which work can now be performed anywhere, the old reliance on perimeter security architectures is now outdated, and companies are rushing to adapt zero-trust networks. In a zero-trust environment, you don’t treat end users any differently when logging in at the office, or if they were to connect from home or at the local coffee shop. We are now living in a validate-first world in which trust must first be corroborated on all devices. These days, you can no longer assume that traffic originating within the LAN is legitimate because there are just too many avenues for attackers and malware to infiltrate.

Bad Habits Still Present in 2021

We all know smoking is bad for us, yet the people we know and our favorite fictional television characters still do it. Similarly, we know that backups are the golden ticket that can save us from the brink of cybersecurity disaster, yet too many IT professionals are not applying this practice correctly. Many are using backup strategies from a decade ago, or more. Localized backups are too prone to attack and hackers are expertly taking out these systems in advance of the primary attack. Cloud backup technology has greatly advanced, and we are seeing more companies trust the cloud and embrace it because it completely segregates your backups from your on-premises environment.

To continue with the health analogy, we know that a healthy diet and regular exercise are of great benefit, but we procrastinate on practicing these good habits until a major medical event occurs. While ransomware continues to be a mounting problem, too many enterprises continue to use a reactionary approach when combatting it. Ransomware is a war that requires proactive measures. We need network intelligence and network monitoring tools at the network layer to monitor what is happening across the IT environment. For example, why is Lucy suddenly accessing the payroll system? We know she has access privileges, but the timing of this activity seems odd. These small, yet important, instances are why we need to stop threat actors from launching attacks from deep within our enterprise’s network.

IT Staff Augmentation

One of the most surprising things we discovered in the IDG commissioned study was how much companies are utilizing staff augmentation strategies. The pandemic is showing us the value in having the ability to transform quickly to implement new strategies. Having a strategic workforce plan that can attract the required talent for a project as quickly as possible is now imperative. Companies are having to contend with serious skill gaps when it comes to areas such as cybersecurity, DevOps, automation, and cloud computing within their own organization. Companies have found that the traditional approach to full-time hiring is too slow and reactionary to inject the proper talent into their organizations.

To meet this challenge, companies are turning to staff augmentation strategies. We found that a surprising 82% of survey respondents in the IDG study considered IT staff augmentation to be highly important for their organization with more than one in ten respondents ranking it as critical. Respondents also reported that nearly 40% of IT staff is considered temporary.

How Did Companies Spend Their Budgets in 2021?

Companies continued their quest to digitally transform their organizations as 60% of respondents allocated funds toward transformational directives. The top five most popular IT investment objectives are listed below:

• 64%: Improving data security
• 51%: Improving operational and process efficiency
• 38%: Improving the customer experience
• 37% Gathering and analyzing data to make better business objectives
• 34%: Driving new revenue through innovation

Respondents were also asked which technologies they considered to be the most crucial to achieving their digital technology strategies. The top five technologies are:

• 25%: Hybrid cloud (private and public)
• 24%: AI enabled technology
• 21%: IoT technology
• 18%: Hardware
• 18%: containers

Hybrid IT Architectures and Multi-cloud Strategies

The IDG study showed that hybrid IT was the preferred architectural goal of companies in 2021 with 55% of respondents describing their current environment as such. Another 37% reported that their organizations are headed in that direction, but aren’t quite there yet. These hybrid architectures are making use of multiple clouds as 46% reported as having a fully-optimized multi-cloud strategy. These multi-cloud strategies are allowing companies to match workloads to their most optimal cloud environment, giving them maximum flexibility while reducing their dependency on any one cloud service provider.

Improving data security was the top use case for cloud technology according to 59% of respondents. There is no doubt that companies are recognizing the value of utilizing cloud-based security solutions. Improving the speed of IT service delivery was mentioned by 50% of respondents, making it the second top use case.

Want More Insights into IT Trends o 2021?

Next Steps: If you would like to learn more about the IT trends that emerged in 2021 and what strategies and controls that companies within your industry used to accelerate their digital transformations and overcome the many emerging challenges, you can download our new white paper titled, “” In it, you will find a lot of great information summarized from the IDG study.

You can also contact us to speak with one of our SMEs to gain additional insights related to your own unique environment and business objectives. It was another year of innovation and growth for WEI, and we look forward to helping our current and future customers achieve their IT objectives as much as possible.

The post A Year in Review: IT Trends 2021 appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Companies have spent the past decade racing to achieve their digital transformation. One of the primary means of achieving this objective is through the cloud – a simple solution to a complex problem.

The problem is that there isn’t just one cloud. The found that “84% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy.” Hybrid cloud environments are challenging enough by themselves, but things have grown even more complex due to the adoption of another IT architecture, edge computing. In a rush to migrate everything to the cloud, we found the cloud isn’t the optimal environment for everything in an enterprise.

Problems With Configuring Modern Environments

When it comes to cloud migration the hybrid cloud environment doesn’t necessarily equate to multi-cloud interoperability. Enterprises face challenges when it comes to integrating all their clouds into a single ecosphere in order to create a framework that routes workflows in an automated fashion amongst themselves.

The practice of uploading all data to the cloud for processing adds too much latency for some mission critical operations. Additionally, many companies have had to face real costs that often exceed those anticipated. While OPEX cost modeling has significant advantages over CAPEX, it doesn’t always equal lower expenses. Now, IT leaders find it cheaper to run things back on-premises. Enterprises need to attain a multi-cloud infrastructure in order to define and create policies to improve efficiencies, accelerate deployments and minimize security risks across their entire cloud portfolio.

How Nutanix Supports A Hybrid Multi-Cloud Environment

It’s obvious that enterprises can’t regress back to on-premise infrastructures. Too many executives have witnessed the enormous impact digital transformation has had in terms of greater innovation and profitability. The solution is a next-generation hyper converged infrastructure (HCI) HCI is cloud-like technology, but it isn’t restricted to the cloud.

is a combination of servers and storage in a distributed infrastructure platform with intelligent software to create flexible building blocks that replace on-premise infrastructure. It consists of separate services, storage networks, and storage arrays. Advanced HCI solutions today can manage enterprise applications in a hybrid cloud environment. No more choosing between public or private cloud. The unifying nature of today’s leading HCI solutions puts you in charge of what goes where. Latency sensitive processes and compliance abiding applications can reside on local infrastructure while other apps can be assigned to their optimum cloud environment. On top of that, admins can then manage both their private and public cloud infrastructures through a single management plane, eliminating the need to bounce between interfaces and portals to manage everything.

Today’s advanced HCI solutions can create a borderless IT estate in which silos are a thing of the past. No need to purchase a bunch of servers and pair them with an external storage solution while connecting it all together with a network switch. Because they were purchased separately you never benefited from purchasing the best of breed for every component. You may have ended up with a complex mesh of compartmentalized equipment that required training and kept you in a proprietary lockdown. Additionally, the implementation and upgrade processes were so expensive, enterprises embraced the practice of oversizing their infrastructures for future growth.

How HCI Continues To Grow

The recent challenges presented by the global pandemic showed how critical the need for great elasticity really is in the . This has accelerated the transition to multi-cloud infrastructures that utilize the appropriate mix of both private and public clouds.

Today’s advanced Nutanix’s HCI solutions are designed for this new era. HCI allows you to create heterogeneous clusters that can accommodate hybrid cloud environments that include multiple CPU generations, all-flash storage, and multiple hypervisors. Additionally, HCI significantly condenses the footprint of your data center or edge computing environment. You also have the ability to choose your hardware preference. You can select the most optimal cloud for your apps and business needs. HCI has the potential to deliver turnkey infrastructure for any app at any scale, across any location, whether it’s an on-premises data center, computing edge location or public cloud service. This cross-platform mobility gives enterprises the duality to run enterprise applications through multi-cloud infrastructures without any code change.

In a world without borders, you need an enterprise hybrid cloud environment that is void of borders as well, one that provides frictionless agility, management simplicity and fractional consumption of services regardless of where they reside, Nutanix’s HCI is innately designed for this.

Next Steps: We’ve helped countless enterprise IT teams transform their business with Nutanix. Leverage our team’s knowledge and expertise to discuss how you can achieve a next-gen HCI solution customized for your business needs. Sign up for a commitment-free conversation with our Nutanix expert, Mark Gabryjelski today!

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Have you ever felt that something was too good to be true? Something that appeared to solve every problem without sacrificing anything in return? You might think there’s a hidden catch somewhere, but when it comes to cloud services with , it really is that good.

In a time when enterprises are asking more of IT than ever before, a solution that can provide a cloud-like experience with on-premises control, and can do it while reducing costs and complexity, is exactly what these organizations need to be successful.

Before we delve into exactly how HPE GreenLake and HPE Synergy work together to deliver increased value to HPE customers, let’s discuss the highlights of each solution on its own.

HPE GreenLake Brings The Cloud To You

HPE GreenLake is a fully managed, scalable cloud infrastructure service, which offers enterprises an as-a-Service delivery model for on-premises infrastructure. More specifically, it offers IT-as-a-service to simplify IT with consistent cloud operations

In designing GreenLake, HPE has cast aside the one-size-fits-all approach to supported technology by allowing enterprises to choose the most appropriate supported HPE or third-party technology. HPE also offers flexible pay-as-go models and makes it easy for enterprises to scale to their exact needs without worrying about costs.

HPE GreenLake has a variety of use cases, from data transformation and unlocking insights, to application modernization and offering a cloud-like experience on virtual machines. Thanks to its built-in flexibility, enterprises can utilize HPE GreenLake to fulfill their exact needs instead of making do with the rigidity found in competing options.

HPE Synergy Can Power Any Workload Within The Hybrid Cloud

HPE Synergy, a composable bladed infrastructure, can power any workload on a single infrastructure and can run both traditional and cloud-native workloads, reducing management complexity and cost.

Its compute models offer IT the ability to make use of processors that consume higher levels of power, and provide a larger number of cores than past systems. This allows HPE Synergy to run applications that require higher performance CPUs, and more memory configurations.

HPE Synergy also simplifies the firmware and driver distribution process, while offering automatic updates for a single frame or group of frames from a single management point.

[Featured Video]
Real Tech with WEI – HPE Synergy Episode

HPE Synergy and GreenLake Together

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits of each solution on its own, let’s talk about how they work together.

When combined, the two allow enterprises to run almost any business workload on one cloud-like platform, without sacrificing the control of on-premises infrastructure. They help enterprises optimize value per workload, simplify management, reduce costs, and allow IT to focus on business initiatives instead of just keeping the lights on.

, the benefits can be broken down into four main categories:

• Efficiency: HPE GreenLake cloud services with HPE Synergy frees IT staff from routine tasks, consolidates IT into a flexible, simple platform, and improves productivity for infrastructure teams by 60%.
• Speed: Together, the solutions allow for faster deployment time and offer a 75% faster time to market than other solutions.
• Control: By utilizing HPE GreenLake cloud services with HPE Synergy, enterprises can meet low-latency performance needs, secure IT and data, and enjoy a 35% lowered cost of operations.
• Economic: In addition to the aforementioned operations savings, enterprises will also see reduced costs by eliminating overprovisioning, reducing overhead, and a reduction in the costs associated with IT resources.

By combining the flexibility of the cloud with the control of on-premises infrastructure, all wrapped up in an IT-as-a-Service package, HPE is offering enterprises a new way to meet challenges head on and turn IT into a source of innovation.

Are You Interested In HPE GreenLake Cloud Services With HPE Synergy?

As a global, edge-to-cloud company, HPE is helping enterprises around the world implement solutions that improve productivity and reduce costs. In combining HPE GreenLake with HPE Synergy, they are helping enterprises take control of their digital infrastructures.

Did You Know? WEI is an HPE Platinum Partner and we have extensive experience implementing HPE Synergy for Fortune 500 companies. If data center modernization is on your roadmap, to start a conversation about how HPE Synergy can fit in your environment AND ask us how HE GreenLake services can help you deliver IT services to the business FASTER.

NEXT STEPS: Learn 6 tips for mitigating financial risk and maximizing operational reward with Composable Infrastructure in our FREE white paper below!

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It seems like everyone is going hybrid these days when it comes to enterprise architectures. According to Gartner, 75 percent of midsize and large organizations will have adopted a multi-cloud and/or a hybrid IT model by now. The reason is pretty simple, while 97 percent of IT decision makers confirm a positive experience with the public cloud, not everything can go there. Unfortunately, there are issues such as security, compliance, and the uncomfortable uncertainty of managing your stuff “up there” wherever that place is, that prevents companies from the public cloud experience for all. If everything could reside in a public cloud however, what a wonderful world it would be.

The inequality within hybrid models

The adoption of a brings about a lot of flexibility. It lets you choose where to host your applications, workloads and resources. But with hybrid architectures, many organizations quickly discover an unsettling consequence, inequality. While the public cloud is a panacea for matters such as scalability, rapid deployment time, resource utilization efficiencies and reduced startup costs, many of your critical applications that remain on-prem continue to be saddled with the typical restraints as was exemplified in a recent survey by 451 Research that examines the typical cloud experience through the lens of 1,001 “on the ground” practitioners. Here are a few of the key findings from that report that illustrate the ongoing challenges of the on-premises model:

• Scalability and agility were the biggest worries, with 80 percent citing that deployment times are too slow.
• Capacity planning was a major challenge for 71 percent of IT leaders, with 92 percent acknowledging a wait time of 30 days or longer to get new capacity installed.
• 83 percent of enterprises are still using fixed-capital models for on-premise capacity, reducing the agility of budgets and innovation.

There’s no doubt, that from the on-prem world, the grass looks a lot greener on the other side of the fence. And so lies the conundrum. How do IT decision makers balance the need for greater agility, and improved provisioning times that you typically get from a cloud experience while maintaining security and control of their resources? In the end, most IT leaders play it safe, which creates unnecessary 40-50 percent server capacity and lost opportunities.

Consumption-based IT

What IT leaders need is a cloud-like experience on-premises. Doing so would eliminate the blaring gaps that exist when comparing the on-prem experience to that of the public cloud. But is that even possible?

Here’s some good news at a time when good news is at a premium! You actually can have high resiliency, scalability, and effective capacity utilization while still remaining secure, compliant and in control. It’s a new cloud-like financial model referred to as consumption-based IT and it is available today through HPE GreenLake services. While you may not have heard of GreenLake, you have certainly heard of its parent company, HPE. So popular is the idea of transforming your on-prem environment to a public cloud-like experience, that GreenLake is HPE’s fastest growing business. With 10 years of experience as a market leading IT-as-a-Service provider, GreenLake has demonstrated to its customer base that you can have the cloud experience everywhere.

How the HPE GreenLake model works

There are definite reasons why the public cloud experience is superior to the on-prem strategies of most enterprises today. Public clouds are comprised of the latest equipment and service catalog technology. All of it is administered by experts in their field who utilize best practices, operational techniques and orchestration to ensure optimum performance. This what you get with GreenLake. You can achieve that cloud-like experience with the latest technology from HPE such as HPE SimpliVity, HPE Synergy, Nimble Storage and ProLiant Gen10 servers. They also incorporate third party software and services including Docker, Hadoop, SAP HANA, Nutanix AHV, VMware Cloud Foundation, Microsoft Azure and AWS. Multi-vendor flexibility without the lock in, that’s nice! All of this is then managed by them, while ensuring that you are calling the shots. By handing over the administrative burden to dedicated specialists, your own IT department can focus on business objectives and value added projects.

Four steps for adopting ITaaS with HPE GreenLake

The GreenLake blueprint involves the following essential steps to adopting an IT-as-a-Service experience across your entire enterprise.

1. Define the right mix to remain in control of your complete enterprise according to your current business needs
2. Implement in-place scalability and on-demand processes in order to stay ahead of business demand, while only paying for what you use (this is key!)
3. Optimize skill sets within your organization by offloading management of your hybrid environment to HPE GreenLake Management Services
4. Access your operating model to simplify IT, while providing increased security, visibility and flexibility at the same time

Greater cash flow and cost visibility

The GreenLake model is a pay-per-use model. No longer do you have to play it safe with excessive and wasteful capacity that approaches 40-50 percent for the average enterprise. By eliminating overprovisioning and upfront capital expenditures, HPE customers are seeing an average cash flow saving of 30-40 percent on average after adopting the GreenLake consumption-based IT model. On top of everything else they offer, GreenLake’s metering and analytics software helps customers determine the true cost and profitability to each of their allotted IT services.

Talk to WEI about consumption-based IT

There is nothing new about the concept of consumption-based IT. What’s new is that it is no longer just available in the public cloud. It’s available for your on-prem data center as well. If you want to learn how eradicating the inequality of workloads and performance within their hybrid architectures, then talk to WEI where we can introduce you to the GreenLake model, as well as the concept of having the best of both worlds at your doorstep.

Pay-per-use models are looking to be the future of IT cost models, ask us how your business can start reaping the benefits. Send me a message on LinkedIn to start a discussion, or contact our team here. We look forward to helping you find opportunities to move your business forward in the most cost-effective manner.

You might be interested in our white paper about implementing a hybrid IT model and how to overcome some of the common challenges we’ve seen across enterprise organizations. Click below to read more.

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This week, we will be looking at the top ten use cases for multicloud storage strategies.

1. Expanding Cloud Backup Options to Cut Costs
2. On and Off-Ramping Data
3. Clustering Mission-Critical SQL Databases in the Cloud
4. Accelerating Development, Automating DevOps
5. Moving an Application Using Docker Containers
6. Using the Cloud for Disaster Recovery
7. Cloud Bursting for Free (Almost)
8. Switching Between Public Cloud Providers in a Flash
9. Monitoring and Predicting Usage Costs
10. Using Cloud Storage like You’d Use Your Storage Area Network

Expanding Cloud Backup Options to Cut Costs

42% of enterprises use cloud for reasons. Multicloud storage services provide highly efficient data transfer and storage capabilities to create low-cost, flexible, safe alternatives for cloud backup. They cut the cost, while increase the performance and scalability of object storage, making it possible to harness the cloud for long-term retention and archiving of critical data.

On and Off-Ramping Data

Many organizations need the capability to move data from the data center to the cloud and back again in an easy and cost effective way. Multicloud options provide a great opportunity for that, particularly ones built specifically for enterprise applications and workloads. These storage clouds:

• Accelerate migration with compression and change block tracking technologies
• Enable simplified data transfer processes
• Offer direct compatibility across clouds (previously not possible)
• Include enterprise-class reliability and security features

The simplicity of on and off-ramping data with multicloud is a simplified, cost-effective process with a pay as you go structure ensuring enterprises aren’t paying for storage and capabilities they don’t need.

Clustering Mission-Critical SQL Databases in the Cloud

Typically, an organization’s most sensitive and important data is stored in SQL databases. If anything goes wrong with that SQL database, the results could be disastrous. Clustering cannot be done with cloud block storage because clustering requires two compute instances. A workaround that mutlicloud provides is hosting those important SQL databases in a cloud with added redundancy. This ensures that the data is still available if anything happens to the cloud. In addition to this added level of redundancy, organizations use multicloud for this reason because clustering can be done to add shared access to the cloud where this data is being stored.

Accelerating Development, Automating DevOps

Multicloud is suitable for developers that need to be able to create data sets and clones for building, testing, and deploying apps into production. Multicloud is a viable and more affordable strategy than investing in more CapEx to cover the needed development resources. The portable and accessible nature of cloud structures extends to all databases, file servers, file shares, and any other needed applications and resources developers would need.

Moving an Application Using Containers

Containers are increasingly being used across enterprises because of the capabilities and features they provide. and are two of the major players in the container space. Containerization allows for an entire software program, including everything it needs to run successfully, to be housed in one unit (container) to avoid errors between different applications, deployments, and systems. It can also be more efficient than virtual machines, as multiple containers can be run on one operating system and with a smaller amount of required space needed. Multicloud and seamlessly align with one another, making containerization an easy opportunity to see for any organization taking advantage of multicloud storage.

Using the Cloud for Disaster Recovery

Disaster recovery is one of the most frequently used and planned for aspects of a multicloud strategy. Organizations look into multicloud for backup and disaster recovery reasons alone. This is in large part due to the efficiency and appealing cost structure that a secure offsite data repository provides. With the advent of cloud-ready data protection, cloud-based DR has become even more practical and cost-efficient.

By allowing enterprises to put data in the cloud, or in multiple clouds, the cloud-ready data protection model provides new options for DR while bringing down the cost. Instead of maintaining a separate DR site with redundant compute infrastructure that doesn’t get used unless there’s a disaster (or you’re testing your DR capabilities), now you can simply move data copies to the cloud and avoid all that CapEx.

Cloud Bursting for Free

is the capability of extending workloads to the public cloud when the computing capacity needed to run an application in a data center or private cloud increases. In earlier cloud bursting models, this capability also brought with it some data security risks. Even more secure cloud bursting strategies didn’t come without a significant cost associated with it. It is now possible to create many copies of data using cloning features without the need to pay for multiple copies of data. Unfortunately, cloud bursting is never completely free, but organizations can take advantage of cloud bursting in a multicloud model with incredibly low incremental costs, creating an illusion of it being free compared to the associated costs organizations experienced when cloud bursting prior.

Switching Between Public Cloud Providers in a Flash

Multicloud strategies enable organizations to avoid vendor lock-in with any cloud provider or company. Fortunately, the reasons for this give organizations the control and freedom to determine exactly which cloud providers will be utilized and at which times. The entire philosophy of multicloud is to provide increased flexibility and capability to move around and access data. This seamless accessibility extends into making decisions to entirely switch between public cloud providers.

Monitoring and Predicting Usage Costs

By integrating with predictive analytics capabilities, multicloud storage services can now perform automated monitoring and tracking of the resources you’re actually using, so you know what your costs are going to be. You can see precisely how much capacity you’re using in any given period of time, so there are no surprises when you receive an invoice. Multicloud storage services can also help you estimate future usage based on any number of variables that you provide, and resize capacity on-the-fly to meet future requirements.

Using Cloud Storage like You’d Use Your Storage Area Network

The multicloud model makes it easy to on-ramp data to the cloud and still get enterprise-grade data capabilities and consistent data services, so you can actually start using the cloud the way you used to use storage area networks, but for a lot less money.

Now What?

At this point we have covered a range of topics within the realm of multicloud storage strategies, such as:

1. What’s Your Multicloud Strategy?
3. 7 Tips for Multicloud Success
4. Ultimate 10-Point Checklist for your Multicloud Storage Strategy
5. This blog on multicloud storage use cases

Multicloud is and has proven to be a worthwhile strategy for enterprises to take advantage of on the road to digital transformation. This series of blogs covered all angles of a multicloud storage strategy and deployment. Talking to an IT solutions provider can help to answer any additional questions. For more information on how to optimize your multicloud strategy or to get started with multicloud, talk to the multicloud experts at WEI.

Next Steps: Get everything multicloud in one place by downloading HPE’s full eBook,

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• • IT as a service (ITaaS)
  • Efficient use cloud applications
  • Mobility, virtualization, and infrastructure modernization
  • Lower costs and risk

5 Reasons to Choose Nimble for Your Hybrid IT

1. Flexibility and Hybrid Storage. When HPE purchased Nimble Storage, they didn’t just acquire all-flash tech. Part of the acquisition also included Nimble hybrid storage, a predictive hybrid flash array. By using predictive analytics combined with hybrid flash performance, scalability, and availability, the Nimble Adaptive Flash array operates at an all-flash service level and storage system. It also has the ability to balance high performance at an “auto flash” service level while at the same time operating at a “minimal flash” service level, which gives your enterprise better optimization.

2. No Disruptions as You Scale and Grow. One of the beautiful aspects of Nimble architecture is its ability to scale-up seamlessly to grow the performance and capacity of an array without putting a halt on your enterprise. Attaching additional storage shelves allows Nimble to grow the capacity of a running system, while upgrades to the array’s controller modules scale the overall performance. Nimble also has the ability to scale-out in one managed cluster without disrupting processes. It joins together up to four arrays to build a scale-out cluster, which achieves both linear performance and capacity scaling.

3. Backup and Secondary Workloads. If your enterprise is looking for a solution that allows you to put your backup data to use, Nimble provides you that option. As a single device that is optimized for secondary storage tasks such as backup and disaster recovery, its flash performance also allows you to do real work with the secondary data sets. The solution instantly backs up and recovers data from any primary storage, and it saves time and space with always-on duplication. Flash performance also allows data protection administrators to perform instant restores, validate backups and more.

4. Data Security and Disaster Recovery. With more data being used with less infrastructure, thanks to the ability to manage large workloads with optimized consolidation, it is extremely important secure that data from external threats. HPE’s ability to mitigate risk in a hybrid IT environment is a major strength of its flash storage offerings. With its integrated data protection, risk is minimized in a hybrid IT environment through fully redundant hardware architecture and by using the speed of flash to protect workloads in .

5. Cloud Integration. Nimble Storage offers a range of “Predictive Flash” storage which offers simplicity and reliable performance, as well as cloud Essentially, it serves as a “flash fabric” across primary flash, secondary flash, and multi-cloud storage. The physical systems, together with public cloud storage service, provides a convenient way to establish and run the flexible data storage required by hybrid IT. This allows a free flow of data between onsite arrays and the cloud.

As tech continues to grow and evolve, the flexibility, adaptability, and optimization that flash storage solutions (such as Nimble) provide is going to be a necessity to keep up. Hybrid IT is about using a mixture of elements that work for your enterprise, an infrastructure solution that will no doubt be prominent for the foreseeable future. For these reasons, including the five listed above, hybrid and flash storage are a perfect match!

Still not sure you should invest in HPE’s Nimble Storage Solution? Contact WEI today for a personalized look at your enterprise’s hybrid IT strategy to find out how HPE Nimble can be used to your advantage.

Are you implementing a hybrid IT strategy? Are you running into challenges?

Check out our white paper, Overcoming the Challenges of Implementing a Hybrid IT Model, to best prepare for any unforeseen challenges.

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Keep reading to discover the fundamental differences between these two game changing strategies.

What is Hybrid IT?

First, let’s discuss . Hybrid IT governs the deployment and delivery of applications, digital services and information, bridging the gap between legacy and cloud applications.

In the article, Hybrid Cloud: Why Hybrid IT May be the Better Choice, Nick Heath defines Hybrid IT as, “Running existing, non-cloud, corporate IT infrastructure alongside public cloud and gradually migrating those systems to the public cloud over time.”

The goal of Hybrid IT is to create cloud-like delivery models that provide users with the tools they need, when they need them. In other words, Hybrid IT is about achieving the same service capabilities of the cloud for the entire infrastructure, be it a traditional data center housed inside your enterprise, or cloud services.

It’s important to understand that is about delivering your workloads with ease and flexibility end-to-end across the entire enterprise as a whole. Hybrid IT is about attaining a level of composable infrastructure throughout the data center so that physical, onsite storage and network resources are delivered as services.

Offering IT-as-a-Service transforms IT from a supplementary component of your enterprise to a streamlined branch of business centered on self-service, standardization and responsiveness. With a responsive Hybrid IT infrastructure, your enterprise will be able to engage and drive technology decisions quickly and efficiently.

What is Hybrid Cloud?

The hybrid cloud consists of at least two separate geographical locations where data and applications are stored. Typically, though not always, this cloud deployment architecture involves an onsite private cloud system for the use of just your enterprise that is joined with at least one public cloud. Together they work together to host digital services, data and applications for users, all of which are managed through a common interface overseen by the IT team.

According to the article in CMS Wire ,

[The hybrid cloud] allows [an enterprise] to combine the online capability of a public cloud with the on-premises security of a private cloud. It offers businesses greater flexibility in where they host resources, enabling them to run classified applications or mission-critical workloads on the private cloud, while maintaining the ability to access resources like SaaS and IaaS on the public cloud.

With the help of the public cloud, IT is able to increase and decrease the amount of servers they are utilizing to fit the demand of the enterprise while also meeting user needs. This flexibility allows smoother and faster operations while protecting their most critical resources by keeping them on the private cloud. Hybrid cloud offers the best of both worlds.

Conclusion

The purpose of both is to reach business goals through the use of cloud technologies. Hybrid IT focuses on how to efficiently manage existing networking systems and multi-cloud solutions, with the goal of delivering IT resources as a service. Hybrid cloud solutions focus on the joint use of public and private cloud storage and computing, offering flexibility while still protecting your most important data.

For further reading on Hybrid IT, check out the white paper below, .

The post What’s the Difference Between Hybrid IT and Hybrid Cloud? appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Has your organization clearly defined your hybrid According to , “Many organizations have now passed the definitional stage of cloud computing and are testing cloud architectures inside and outside the enterprise, and over time, the cloud will simply become one of the ways that we ‘do’ computing, and workloads will move around in hybrid internal/external IT environments. As a result, the traditional role of the enterprise IT professional is changing and becoming multifaceted. A hybrid IT model requires internal and external IT professionals to support the business capabilities of the enterprise.”

Whether you’re developing your hybrid IT strategy, or already implementing it, we’ve outlined how to overcome some of the common challenges of hybrid IT.

Transitioning from CAPEX to OPEX with Hybrid IT

One of the primary allures of the public cloud is the adoption of an OPEX model rather than a CAPEX driven one. To succeed with hybrid IT, management that is accustomed to a fixed cost model consisting of large capital expenditures needs to be ready for the management requirements that a variable cost model requires. IT leaders can quickly lose control of cost flows when juggling multiple cloud instances spread across multiple cloud platforms, serving multiple business lines within the company.

How can you avoid sticker shock? IT must control costs just like any other business unit within the company. A careful evaluation of SLAs before signing any contracts with CSPs is critical in order to avoid unforeseen cost surprises. Monthly bills from cloud vendors need to be carefully scrutinized and analyzed for cost cutting measures such as the decommissioning of resources during off-peak demand periods. The right technology partner can help you interpret those bills and provide recommendations for ‘what should be’ in the cloud, and what should not.

The pricing model is an even greater challenge for government institutions and non-profit organizations that are saddled with an inflexible budgeting process. IT leaders within these types of organizations need to convince the senior leadership of the advantages of an OPEX cost structure.

Meeting Security and Compliance Requirements

, 95 percent of IT professionals reported migrating some part of their infrastructure to the cloud in the past 12 months. However, 35 percent said they had also ultimately moved workloads out of the cloud and back on-premises. This reversal was due to either security, compliance, or performance concerns. Some of these enterprises may have been over exuberant in their rush to the cloud, neglecting to consider the complexity of compliance and security requirements.

The Challenge of Remaining Compliant

Managing and securing multiple infrastructures that provide greater access and mobility for users is far more challenging than securing isolated IT silos. The rapid pace of cloud innovation also complicates security measures as new tools and innovations equate to an increase in zero day attacks. Organizations that must meet HIPAA, PCI or other types of compliance measures must ensure that their cloud providers can satisfy stringent standards. Encrypting both data in transit and data at rest should be a priority for these types of organizations.

This is where hybrid IT begins to enter the picture. What makes the cloud so alluringly powerful is its ability to service customers so effectively. It would be nice if established organizations could transition everything to the cloud, but that dream is not possible as of yet due to a number of reasons such as legacy implications, industry and government compliances, security, and the lack of required skills.

Although remaining compliant with industry and governmental regulations is an extra challenge, the benefits of hybrid IT are undeniable. The newly found freedom that comes with it delivers a degree of agility, responsiveness, and flexibility that sparked the digital transformation and is amending the way in which we do business today. The transition isn’t an easy one, which is why it’s important to work with an IT solutions provider that can help streamline the process of implementing the appropriate IT services. For more information on overcoming the challenges of hybrid IT, check out our white paper on hybrid IT below.

The post Overcoming Security and Compliance Challenges of Hybrid IT appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

The world is indeed going digital, and not just because technology is dictating it. This massive upheaval is the result of change agents such as the cloud, mobile computing, social media, big data analytics, and the consumerization of IT; all of these have transformed how the world does business today. Is your organization keeping up with the times? Read on to brush up on the topic of hybrid IT, and find out why 63 percent of organizations are now pursuing a hybrid IT approach, according to a .

What is Hybrid IT and Why Does it Matter?

Although the hybrid cloud plays a big part in this new technology strategy, hybrid IT is much more than a cloud deployment model. While virtualization and the software defined data center are certainly important facets of hybrid IT, it is not limited to a particular architecture. This IT approach is all about the big picture, the master view concerning the delivery of digital services to the users that need them, when they need them. For example, a hybrid IT environment may include web servers that deliver applications for mobile devices as well as legacy applications hosted in an on premise data center. It’s about deploying services to customers as quickly as possible in the most cost-efficient, consistent, and secure delivery method.

Hybrid IT Allows for Optimal Resource Allocation

To use an effective analogy to describe the process of hybrid IT, think of a hybrid automobile. Just as Hybrid IT is composed of both on and off premise infrastructure, a hybrid automobile consists of two engines: a modern day electric motor and a traditional gasoline engine. The car is run by a software management system that is designed to deliver optimum levels of fuel efficiency and performance. When accelerating from a full stop, the car draws power from the battery and exclusively uses the electric motor. Once the car reaches normal cruising speed, the car will completely switch to the combustion engine, at which point the gasoline engine can also repower the generator. During periods of heavy acceleration, both engines may be utilized to maximize driving performance.

Just as the hybrid automotive management system matches the best power source to fit each individual driving condition, hybrid IT is about matching the ideal delivery system for each service. Hybrid IT is not about simply having, “Some of on-prem[ise] and cloud,” says Mark Peters, Senior Analyst for . Instead, “Hybrid IT is about having some of each working in dynamic, as-seamless-as-possible, and .”

Hybrid IT is a unified infrastructure that incorporates multiple networks that connect systems to users. In the middle of these two architectures is the IT Broker, who like the management system of the hybrid vehicle, determines the optimum solution for your enterprise’s needs.

How Hybrid IT Can Work For Your Organization

The overall mission of hybrid IT is to deliver the right services for your organization’s needs, recognizing that no one size fits all; it’s about instant provisioning tools that deliver the desired service in automated fashion within the most suitable architecture. Because of this goal, hybrid IT gives organizations the opportunity to consider a workload’s resources, security and performance needs before determining whether it is a better fit for the cloud or if the solution should remain on-premises.

Essentially, hybrid IT is about providing IT as a Service (ITaaS) by providing solutions according to scale, performance, speed and cost. Organizations that fail to do this run the risk of internal customers bypassing the IT organization completely and consuming IT services from third party cloud vendors, possibly putting the organization’s security in jeopardy.

Learn more about Hybrid IT in our white paper, “.”

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