Why the Distributed Cloud Model will be a dominant trend in 2021?

Forrester Research estimates that about 20% of enterprise workloads now run in the public cloud. A survey by Goldman Sachs aligns with that estimate, finding that 23% of workloads run in the cloud. Further, 43% of organizations expect to migrate additional workloads by the end of 2022. Many cloud initiatives have focused on the so-called low-hanging fruit; email, collaboration, file-sharing and similar applications that do not require much customization. Now organizations are starting to migrate more mission-critical workloads, such as HR systems and other back-office applications to the cloud.

The fact remains, however, that organizations will need to keep some workloads on-premises. Organizations simply are not in a position to refactor highly customized monolithic applications for the cloud environment. Even if a possibility, many would hesitate to put sensitive enterprise data in the cloud; mainly due to security and compliance concerns. The downside is that organizations must manage two separate infrastructures in a hybrid environment.

This hard reality is driving an emerging trend called “distributed cloud”. Gartner defines it as “the distribution of public cloud services to different physical locations; while operation, governance, updates and the evolution of those services are the responsibility of the originating public cloud provider.”

In other words, the distributed cloud enables customers to put public cloud resources in the on-premises data centre.

The value of distributed cloud in the current times

The Distributed Cloud concept addresses a fundamental need for hybrid cloud customers. In most hybrid cloud deployments, the customer retains control for one part of the hybrid cloud infrastructure. Thus, the customer has no way to leverage the capabilities of the public cloud service provider. Gartner, says that distributed cloud computing is the first cloud model that incorporates the physical location of cloud-delivered services as part of its definition. This is significant, as historically, location has never been part of any cloud computing contracts.

In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, this assumes greater significance. Today, remote locations consume more data. Gartner believes that the distributed cloud concept can ensure that infrastructure is physically closer to those who need the capabilities – specifically from a low-latency perspective. Gartner also says that the distributed cloud concept can ensure a consistent control plane to administer the cloud infrastructure from public to private cloud and extend consistently across both environments.

In the current scenario where remote staff need to access applications securely, the distributed cloud concept can help in delivering major improvements in performance due to the elimination of latency issues, as well as reducing the risk of global network-related outages or control plane inefficiencies. This also translates to other advantages. For example, increased compliance with regulatory requirements that mandate storing of data in a certain location. From a redundancy point of view, there is a reduced risk of downtime, as the cloud services can be local.

Key Cloud partner leaders

Today, the major cloud providers are leading the way with solutions such as AWS Outposts, Google Anthos and Microsoft Azure Stack. For example, AWS Outposts delivers fully managed AWS infrastructure, native AWS services, APIs, and tools to virtually any customer on-premises facility. AWS Outposts enables applications that need to run on-premises due to low latency, local data processing, or local data storage needs while removing the undifferentiated heavy lifting required to procure, manage, and upgrade on-premises infrastructure. AWS Outposts is ideal for workloads that require low latency access to on-premises systems, local data processing, data residency, and migration of applications with local system interdependencies. Similarly, Google Anthos provides a consistent development and operations experience for both cloud and on-premises environments.

The key feature of these services is a single pane of control for operation on both public cloud and on-premises environments. IT infrastructure management is simplified while enabling the customer to retain control over certain applications and data. For enterprises that are struggling to migrate their applications to the cloud due to compliance or legal issues, the distributed cloud concept is a ready solution. They can containerize their applications and manage and run them on-premises using the distributed cloud concept.

Gartner has identified distributed cloud as one of the top ten trends impacting infrastructure and operations in 2020. At the same time, the research firm advises a cautious approach when adopting this new model. Ross Winser, senior research director at Gartner said, “Enthusiasm for new services like AWS Outposts, Microsoft Azure Stack or Google Anthos must be matched early on with diligence in ensuring the delivery model for these solutions is fully understood by I&O teams who will be involved in supporting them.”

Summing Up!

These risks can be mitigated by taking the help of an experienced cloud solutions provider; one that has the capability to help your organization realize the full potential of a distributed cloud infrastructure model.

The author of the article is Indrajeet Ghorpade - General Manager - Technical Services at Rahi Systems.