As most followers of the cloud marketplace are aware, 2012 is looking to be the year of the Hybrid Cloud. With a large segment of the cloud user-base already running private clouds these customers are looking for a methodology to experiment in the public cloud space. Hybrid clouds give existing private cloud users (for example, Dell vStart customers) the opportunity to experiment in a secure and controlled manner with the concept of a public cloud without fully committing to running workloads in a multi-tenant public cloud.
As you can see in the image above, a Hybrid Cloud bridges a private cloud to a public cloud where enterprise customers can easily move workloads from their private cloud environment to a secure, enterprise class public cloud. Having the ability to manipulate workloads between the private and hybrid clouds from a single management interface gives customers flexibility and simplicity in managing their workloads.
At Dell, we currently provide in the US (coming soon in Europe and the rest of the world) our Dell Cloud with VMware vCloud Datacenter Service which provides existing VMware private cloud customers a secure, enterprise class public cloud with hybrid capabilities. Leveraging VMware’s vCloud Connector solution, customers can quickly transfer individual or groups of workloads from the private cloud environment into the Dell vCloud for hybrid cloud processing. Dell has a simple, easy to follow demonstration of this process in the following video:
While the technology of hybrid clouds is interesting, I want to focus on the business value that the hybrid cloud computing model offers enterprise customers. Listed below are some significant benefits from the hybrid cloud:
- Resource Flexibility – allows the enterprise IT staff to “burst” into the hybrid cloud when peak demand hits without having to purchase additional (but relatively unused) hardware in the private cloud
- Application Flexibility – allows the enterprise IT staff to place non-critical applications in the hybrid cloud when demand for critical applications within the private cloud need more resources
- Cloud Compatibility – moving workloads from private to hybrid clouds can be a significant challenge should the two cloud technology bases not match; thus, having a hybrid VMware cloud offers private VMware cloud customers a simple, secure workload transfer infrastructure
For those Dell customers running VMware private clouds or vStart customers, I strongly encourage you to talk with your sales representative about the hybrid capabilities of our vCloud Datacenter Service solution. For customers using VMware private clouds but not Dell customers, please complete this simple online form so we can have the appropriate cloud specialist answer your questions.
Finally, please take advantage of our $999 Dell vCloud offer to get your hybrid cloud solution underway.