Executive Summary: ISG Provider Lens™ Private Hybrid Cloud - Data Center Solutions - Global 2024
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ISG Provider Lens™ Private/Hybrid Cloud – Data Center Solutions - Resiliency Platforms - Global 2024
Rising demand for resiliency tools and cloud management platforms to manage and secure complex hybrid cloud environments
In the last four quarters amid the prevailing economic uncertainties, enterprises have been actively seeking ways to enhance the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of their IT investments. This has made it increasingly hard for CTOs to justify IT spends. Enterprises are exploring strategies to streamline their IT expenditures, rationalize budgets and maximize returns on technology investments. This entails evaluating existing IT infrastructures, identifying optimization and cost reduction areas and adopting innovative approaches such as hybrid cloud computing, automation and outsourcing to achieve greater operational efficiency and financial resilience. They are also maximizing their investments in cloud resources through various methods such as FinOps by placing responsibility on the IT teams for cloud resource consumption.
As organizations increasingly realize the limitations and complexities of depending solely on public cloud services, they are moving toward implementing private and hybrid cloud infrastructure solutions. This shift is motivated by various factors, such as concerns about data security, compliance obligations, optimizing performance and the desire for greater control over IT resources. By embracing private and hybrid cloud environments, organizations can leverage the advantages of cloud computing while better addressing specific operational, regulatory and security challenges. The hybrid cloud infrastructure offers the necessary flexibility, scalability and agility while maintaining control over data residency, security and expenses.
But, with the hybrid cloud infrastructure comes added complexity. This complexity arises from the need to coordinate and optimize resources across different platforms and ensure seamless communication and data flow between on-premises infrastructure and cloud services. Managing a hybrid cloud environment requires specialized skills and tools to navigate the intricacies of hybrid deployment models, such as workload placement, data synchronization and security protocols. IT teams now have to also involve a hybrid cloud management platform that enables them to carefully orchestrate workflows and applications and leverage the strengths of each cloud environment while mitigating potential compatibility issues and performance bottlenecks. This has led to increased demand for hybrid cloud management platforms. Vendors offering these solutions are experiencing heightened interest and investment, driving innovation in this space. They are leveraging AI- and ML-based technologies to improve IT efficiency and deliver a superior user experience.
Enterprises are increasingly prioritizing the establishment of resilient IT infrastructure to safeguard against potential disruptions. To achieve this resilience, they are turning to backup and disaster recovery platforms, contributing to the growth of that market. This expansion is propelled by enterprises’ imperative need to maintain operational continuity in the face of escalating cyber threats and stringent compliance requirements.
Backup and disaster recovery platforms serve as crucial pillars in fortifying organizational resilience. They provide mechanisms for creating duplicate copies of critical data and systems, ensuring that in the event of an unforeseen incident, such as a cyberattack or natural disaster, operations can swiftly resume with minimal disruption. This capability is indispensable in today’s volatile digital landscape, where enterprises are constantly vulnerable to a myriad of threats that can jeopardize their operations and reputation. Furthermore, compliance regulations mandate having robust backup and disaster recovery strategies and systems to safeguard sensitive data and ensure business continuity. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in severe penalties and reputational damage. Hence, enterprises are investing in advanced backup and disaster recovery solutions to not only mitigate risks but also demonstrate adherence to regulatory requirements.
Some of the trends observed in the last year are presented below. Several vendors have started leveraging AI and ML to develop cloud management tools that take data from various sources to predict downtime and implement self healing measures to prevent such situations. AI for IT operations (AIOps) has also become popular. It can monitor various elements of the entire hybrid cloud environment and provide predictive analytics for incident management to aggregate events, reduce noise, auto correlate and identify the probable root cause using ML technology. This has helped enterprises to minimize downtime, enhance system reliability and improve overall user satisfaction.
This is also true in the case of backup and disaster recovery platforms market. Vendors are leveraging automated technologies to bring efficiency and agility to their resiliency solution offerings, by enabling rapid detection, analysis, and response to incidents. AI and ML algorithms are continuously monitoring systems and data, identifying anomalies or potential threats in real time. This proactive approach allows enterprises to pre-emptively address issues before they escalate into full-blown disruptions, thereby minimizing downtime and mitigating the impact on business operations.
As data privacy regulations tighten globally, cloud infrastructure management as well as backup solutions are evolving to prioritize encryption and privacy features. Due to stringent requirements on organizations, safeguarding sensitive data has become paramount. Backup solutions play a crucial role in ensuring data security and privacy throughout its lifecycle, from creation to recovery. Robust encryption provides a layer of protection against unauthorized access and data breaches, for data both in transit and at rest. Along with this, cloud management platforms (CMPs) and backup solutions are incorporating privacy-enhancing features such as access controls and encryption key management to provide organizations with greater control over their data. These features enable enterprises to define and enforce granular access policies, ensuring that only authorized individuals can access sensitive backup data.
Furthermore, backup strategies are evolving to prioritize rapid recovery and minimal downtime. Providers in both the Hybrid Cloud Management Platforms and Resiliency Platforms quadrants are enabling swift restoration capabilities and ensuring consistent database recovery is possible. By minimizing the time required to recover from disruptions, businesses can mitigate revenue loss, maintain productivity and uphold customer satisfaction. Therefore, there’s a growing emphasis on implementing these solutions that offer seamless and efficient recovery processes to minimize the impact of downtime on business operations.
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