The public cloud has dramatically improved IT by enabling IT teams to interact with data and write new applications in a cloud-native manner. Cloud services simplify the application development process, provide services on demand, and enable users to pay as they go. Public cloud usage has grown significantly, and its widespread adoption suggests it will continue to grow.
However, most IT computing still takes place outside the public cloud because there is no effective way to adopt cloud-native services outside of the data centers (or "regions") operated by super-scale cloud computing providers. This location constraint negatively impacts the adoption of cloud computing in three main areas: performance (latency and throughput), data sovereignty (hosting and regulation), and business considerations (legacy architecture and pricing).
So to realize the full potential of cloud computing, many enterprises are turning to a recent innovation in cloud computing: distributed clouds that are not limited to a specific location or region.
How does a distributed cloud work? Through apis, distributed clouds connect to the IT stack in any location and provide cloud services as if running on the cloud platform of a very large scale cloud computing provider. However, it does not run in a dedicated location, but on any existing infrastructure on top of IaaS, virtualized environments, or bare machines. It is independent of the underlying physics of the stack and requires no installation cost or capital expenditure. Distributed clouds can run workloads in any environment: commercial data centers, on-premise facilities, edge microdata centers, and even in hybrid multi-facility environments.
How is cloud computing changing the enterprise
Modern application development is all about cloud computing. It has been a major enabler of progress in modern applications, such as those dedicated to the Internet of Things, smart cities, and personal health, and will continue to serve as an infrastructure for development and innovation for businesses of all sizes. However, as more and more enterprises adopt a cloud-first approach with native cloud architectures and technologies, "IT budget" has become synonymous with "cloud budget" and is therefore very costly.
Therefore, the next step for many enterprises is to manage cloud computing costs while supporting on-premise and cloud-native applications as well as cloud migration. Their computing strategy may be a combination of on-premise facilities, bare metal, and hybrid clouds. Therefore, they need a cloud platform with architectural freedom to meet their needs and budgets.
This flexibility is provided by customizable distributed clouds. By facilitating interoperability with existing infrastructure, it enables enterprises to deploy and scale applications wherever they are needed. The more open they are about where to run their applications, the more freedom they have to optimize their budgets.
Who is driving cloud computing innovation?
Amazon, Microsoft and Google have gone from innovators to holders of cloud computing. Innovation in cloud computing technology is coming from startups and traditional IT companies. Here are some examples:
As Fortune 500 companies seek to innovate and modernize their IT and application infrastructure, Kyndryl Corporation has become one of the first choices for system integrators. Kyndryl solves many of the problems of cloud computing applications for large companies. One of the innovations they support is the distributed cloud.
NetApp has spent more than $2 billion on more than a dozen acquisitions to build its cloud-computing portfolio. Their focus has been on creating a portfolio that enables enterprises to connect a variety of computing and storage infrastructure to cloud platforms. Instead of assuming that their customers will have new implementations on top of the cloud infrastructure, NetApp has built a portfolio that enables customers to move to more cloud-native functionality with their current architecture.
Zenlayer has built cloud computing infrastructure in different regions, giving them a global reach that even super-scale vendors can't match. Zenlayer claims that its cloud computing infrastructure is globally distributed and that 85% of its Internet users around the world have latency of less than 25 milliseconds. Focusing on the location of the physical infrastructure that enables global performance is an important innovation for many modern applications.
Emerging cloud computing innovations
Distributed cloud, which is programmatically integrated into any existing infrastructure, is an innovation that moves enterprises forward by providing them with a customizable cloud platform to meet specific local needs. Without the need to install any software, its cloud-native building blocks leverage existing servers to run application workloads in any private cloud, public cloud, on-premise facility, and hybrid environment.
As a result, application owners can leverage existing and available infrastructure in the location (or locations) of their choice to build optimized cloud computing strategies
No comments