by Nick Cross, VP SDDC EMEA – You can follow Nick Cross on LinkedIn for more on #FlexibleFuture and Hybrid Cloud
The last few months have demanded unparalleled responses from governments, business and individuals. It has seen an acceleration in new ways of operating, as enterprises have rushed to implement business continuity and home working.
Now, as this early react phase evolves into one of more reflection, organizations need to consider how prepared they are for whatever the future brings. How successful was their transition? What could they have done differently, and how do they implement those learnings to be better prepared in the coming weeks and months? Is their IT infrastructure as stable, agile and scalable as they thought?
Preparing for the next wave
For those who have already reflected and identified areas of improvement, many will have found that their infrastructure wasn’t suitable for what they needed it to do. They might have struggled to have significant parts of their workforce working in different places, rapidly roll out new applications on top (such as collaboration tools and sharing platforms), have the burst-out capacity for online ordering, or the ability to provision the network with the right agility.
These enterprises will also have seen how many human pinch points there are in their IT operations processes, slowing down activities such as infrastructure configuration, deployment, and maintenance. These manual interventions are hindering the rapid decision-making and operational flow that this disrupted, digital era now demands.
As enterprises prepare for a challenging business landscape, they need to ensure they are agile enough to adapt quickly and flexibly to meet any future change.
That means having multiple business models that can be scaled up and down depending on the wider situation. For instance, in the hospitality sector, several restaurants, bars and wholesale suppliers have switched to online ordering and delivery direct to consumers; elsewhere, event organizers have pivoted swiftly to delivering virtual experiences. However, the speed of change has not been consistent – some larger enterprises have been able to turn very quickly, despite their apparent size and what might be considered legacy infrastructure, while smaller operators have been slower.
In that instance, having the right infrastructure and the right operating model is critical. That is a simple, stable IT architecture that organizations can deploy their applications to and deliver them out to any user on any device.
The right foundation to build increased resilience
Being able to pivot to new business models and keep operating requires an agile, scalable and flexible foundation that can harness resources quickly, while still being safe and secure. These platforms also need to blend mission-critical, cloud native and modern applications that are vital to enabling innovative services and experiences.
That means hybrid cloud, combining the best of public and private cloud and on-premises data centers that allow native and legacy applications to run in tandem, with the ability to seamlessly port workloads to the environment that suits their needs. In effect, it’s about leveraging resources while extending existing capabilities. At the core of this hybrid cloud strategy are the need for common infrastructure and operations, delivering that much needed agility and flexibility, without adding complexity giving customers the choice and freedom to choose the right cloud for each workload and application without operational constraints
That commonality, or consistency, is critical – historically when using multiple clouds and other platforms, organizations were forced to have different teams and skillsets for each environment. That is a major obstacle to deploying the right mix of clouds and on-premises data centers. Common infrastructure and operations mean that less operational effort is required for management and scale, with established teams able to build upon their existing skillsets to operate their own hybrid cloud.
It is exactly the sort flexible, future-proofed infrastructure that VMware Cloud Foundation delivers – a single resilient platform that has the scalability and self-service capabilities needed to successfully evolve in a constrained environment. Also, by streamlining the IT supply chain, enterprises can maintain flexibility and responsiveness, with the resilience required to face any eventuality.
Your resilient business is waiting
Businesses of all sizes have had to review their established approaches to continue operating. They have done immense amount of hard work to keep staff safe while still serving customers. The last few months of unprecedented change have clearly demonstrated that the most agile digitized companies are the ones able to adapt quickly and will be best placed to emerge fastest from economic slowdown.
But to be ready for the next phase requires more work. Enterprises need to become resilient – the speed at which they were able to react at the beginning of any disruption needs to become the norm.
Only the right hybrid cloud ready infrastructure can deliver this, giving them a digital foundation upon which to deploy multiple business models and truly resilient operations.
Adopting a flexible future hybrid cloud platform enables business continuity no matter what. Start planning for the future with VMware Cloud Foundation.
To learn more, attend our webinar with IDC’s Head of European Cloud Research for unique insights into current cloud trends and investments. Hear how the most digitised companies can prosper through disruption with consistent hybrid cloud.
To learn more about VMware Cloud Foundation, make sure you attend our VMworld 2020 digital event.
