Organizations of all sizes need to shift their focus from a ‘cloud first’ strategy to a ‘cloud if’ mindset if they want to stay competitive. That’s the advice advocated in a new white paper[1] published by leading industry analyst Moor Insights & Strategy.
This is a message your customers need to hear. Too many companies, say the authors, have rushed to public cloud as the solution to all their IT problems. But public cloud options are not always best suited to all workloads and business requirements – and can often end up costing more than on-premises infrastructure.
As a Dell partner, you’re ideally placed to help organizations explore the benefits of hybrid IT based on the high-performing PowerEdge server platform – and give your own business a boost at the same time.
Public cloud adoption isn’t always the answer
Technology is undoubtedly the key to enabling responsiveness to customer and market demands. And an IT department that can enable responsiveness by adopting new workloads, applications, and deployment methodologies is invaluable to a business.
But it should be the business that dictates the applications and workloads required for success. A responsive IT department will then work with the business ‘as a service’, quickly building and deploying the required services to meet its ever-changing workload needs – and helping the business to retain competitive advantage.
It’s all about IT dexterity, which can be achieved with a hybrid infrastructure model, where IT departments are able to choose strategically how and where to run their workloads.
Workload placement strategies to suit specific business needs
The white paper argues that while public cloud plays a key role in IT transformation, true success will only be achieved with an optimal balance of cloud deployments and on-premises infrastructure.
Modern enterprises need modernized infrastructure that’s purposefully designed for the software-defined datacenter (SDDC) – it’s the necessary foundation for any successful hybrid IT strategy.
It means that a pragmatic workload placement strategy is also essential for all organizations.
Rushing to bring outdated and antiquated applications to public cloud solutions doesn’t fix anything. In some cases, it can exacerbate performance and support issues – resulting in unpredictable operational expense (OpEx), management complexity, security, and lack of control.
Instead, the public cloud option should be considered as a tool, not a strategy. Private cloud and on-premises deployments may well prove to be a better option, depending on specific business requirements.
Many of the workloads and applications that drive modern businesses are well-suited for on-premises placement – the report details five key advantages that can be gained with on-premises infrastructure:
- Workload criticality
- Performance
- Data management
- Security
- Cost
PowerEdge – the bedrock of the modern data center
The Moor Insights report also suggests that Dell PowerEdge server[2] are ideally suited to form the foundation of a successful hybrid on-premises solution run on modernized infrastructure.
That’s because the latest Dell PowerEdge servers are the bedrock of the modern data center. Designed and built from the ground up to enable IT transformation without compromise, they’re powered by Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors and intelligent system management.
Available in a comprehensive choice of configurations, PowerEdge severs deliver the scalability, security and intelligent automation that’s needed to give organizations the edge they’re looking for.
The importance of modernized infrastructure
Award-winning[3] PowerEdge servers are also part of a broader portfolio of products and services – ranging from hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) to fully integrated storage, networking, and data protection solutions, plus expert deployment services – that makes Dell a leading provider of end-to-end modernized infrastructure.
As the white paper puts it, “not all servers are created equal” – and hardware has never mattered more in these days of ‘software-defined’.
Relying on outdated infrastructure is costly. Your customers are likely to discover this if they’re running underperforming applications and workloads on sub-optimal server hardware that consumes too much power and lacks the necessary security.
Dell PowerEdge servers are the smart choice for customers looking to fully embrace array of cloud infrastructure models – and the greater IT dexterity that it will bring to their business.
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[1] Moor Insights & Strategy report, in association with Dell,‘Shifting From A ‘Cloud First’ To A ‘Cloud If’ Enterprise Mindset’ February 2019.
[2] Not available in all countries – please contact your account manager for more information.
[3] 2018 ChannelPro Readers’ Choice Awards Gold Winner: Dell for ‘Best Server Hardware’.