Journey to the Hybrid Cloud

One of the best parts of my job is engaging with customers and partners from around the globe.  Regardless of location, customer size or the maturity of their IT and business operations, a common theme has emerged.  Almost every conversation leads to cloud computing.  Specifically, organizations struggle with the strategy and implementation of fully functional cloud environments.

There are many operating models: private, public, hybrid.  Where do we begin?  How do we automate and orchestrate?  What workloads are the best candidates for these environments?  When should I leverage an off-premise solution?

The biggest question however may be this: how do I get started?

The challenge can be daunting, but the solution doesn’t have to be complicated. Everyone agrees there is a tremendous savings potential both financially and operationally by implementing a hybrid cloud.

Let me provide a little context.  Last year we hosted 6,000 accounts at our executive briefing centers across the globe.  An overwhelming majority of these accounts requested discussions that pertained to EMC’s internal IT transformation, hybrid cloud, the Service Provider Program, or general sessions with EMC’s consulting services practice.

In 2014, EMC announced our Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution.  The launch led to almost 400 customer sessions over about 12 weeks.  These discussions focused on either the strategy of a hybrid cloud or a specific technology that can be utilized to implement a hybrid cloud.

In addition to these conversations, EMC delivered approximately 150 IT Transformation Workshops last year. These workshops bring together representatives from our global services and IT teams for in-depthengagements to understand the customer’s current environment, their desired end state, and the methodology required to get there. These workshops are either a half-day or a full day and involve working in a “roll up the sleeves” style.  The feedback and results have been nothing short of stellar.

Last year, the global services team led an engagement to build a proof-of-concept (PoC) for an enterprise hybrid cloud with one of the largest global financial services institutions in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region.  The PoC incorporated client-required technologies, an operational transformation design of the expected end-state hybrid cloud model, and an IT service management model.  The customer has since selected EMC as their provider of record moving forward.

This is a shining example of how our technologies and services came together around the appropriate solution that encompassed a holistic transformation approach.  One of the most unique aspects of this PoC included live integration with the customer’s existing infrastructure.  This provided a real world opportunity to experience a full solution that started solving business, operational and technology problems from day one.

Most technology organizations in the cloud enablement space are pushing proprietary offerings that require protracted service commitments and substantial investments of time and money.  The approach at EMC is different.  We offer best of breed products and services with a focus on the whole approach that includes the what, why & how.  Not just the pieces and parts that make up the infrastructure.

I would like to extend you an invitation to visit one of our global executive briefing centers and experience, first hand, the EMC approach.

About the Author: Bernie Baker