With Cloud computing rapidly becoming an essential part of many companies’ offerings, organizations of all sizes are starting to embrace the newest trend, IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS). By employing a hybrid Cloud – a combination of private Cloud and public Cloud solutions – these companies are able to tailor their IT environments to match their own unique needs and long-term goals. Along the way, they are ensuring greater flexibility with their IT solutions.

Why is ITaaS gaining such a following? Taking a look at a few predictions from Gartner gives some insight into the reasons. By 2016, it is estimated that the majority of new IT spending will be allocated to Cloud computing; by the end of 2017, almost half of all large enterprises will have adopted the hybrid Cloud.

Companies have to be prepared to make the most of these shifts if they expect to remain agile and competitive. Likewise, businesses that provide IT services or advice to corporate clients must be poised to help those clients build a hybrid Cloud solution that will most effectively support ITaaS.

The mix will differ for every company.

Ultimately, companies will want to retain functions that are unique or otherwise enterprise-critical. They then can source the rest to the public Cloud.

This will require evaluating the cost-benefit of each option to determine the optimal blend, which will be based on overall business goals and operational needs as well as on regulatory and security requirements. Companies will need to assess costs, too, to find the ideal balance of performance and spend.

A growing number of companies most likely will look to establish software-defined data centers (SDDC), which is an environment that maximizes automation of computing, storage, networking, and security resources through virtualization. This provides an excellent foundation to support ITaaS.

Hybrid Cloud delivers significant benefits.

The fundamental value of hybridization is choice. With the ability to configure an individualized private-public Cloud combination, companies can expect to see benefits like the following:

  • Vastly increased flexibility that enables implementation of ITaaS.
  • Scalability of functions without sacrificing security.
  • Less stressed or more productively deployed IT staff.
  • Smoothly integrated internal and public workloads.
  • A more dynamic IT environment.
  • Greater visibility of services and costs, including IT usage by line-of-business.
  • Improved ability to manage compliance requirements.
  • Enhanced customer service.

 

Current IT trends represent best practices for implementing ITaaS.

IT is no longer a segregated support service; it permeates every aspect of a business’s functions and can make or break a company’s ability to grow and thrive.

Eliminating IT silos allows companies to view IT as a strategic business tool. As IT is taking its seat at the C-suite table, companies are realizing that a flexible, scalable IT environment is the only way to meet rapidly changing internal needs as well as external marketplace conditions.

As with any transformational change, top-level buy-in is essential to ensure that ITaaS is a success. Equally important is educating IT personnel on the positive value of this change: how it will benefit them in their job as well as the company as a whole.

To pull it all together successfully, companies must assess their IT infrastructure, workloads, and flows in order to identify the optimal hybrid Cloud configuration for them.