Critical Applications to Move Out of Centralized Public Cloud Locations

Through 2027, 50% of critical enterprise applications will reside outside of centralized public cloud locations, according to Gartner. As cloud computing markets and data center infrastructure evolve, and interest in migrating workloads grows, many enterprises struggle to identify the right partners and solutions.

“Enterprises are beginning to seek placement for workloads that have not migrated to the public cloud,” said Dennis Smith, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “This represents approximately 70% of all workloads, but the growing number of vendors, technologies, and overlapping markets makes it difficult to identify the optimal infrastructure choice for an organization’s unique circumstances and needs.”

There are many options for enterprises seeking infrastructure services for their workloads that now reside on-premises, ranging from vendors’ server virtualization offerings to a full suite of services provided by public cloud providers. To determine appropriate placement strategies, Gartner recommends that infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders follow three steps.

1. Evaluate Infrastructure Requirements:

Many enterprises are seeking cloud-inspired solutions for existing on-premises workloads, such as business-critical applications and general-purpose workloads. These environments may be virtualized but have limited automation and self-service capabilities due to their custom-made nature. Enterprises that expand their on-premises environments to be cloud-inspired must ensure deployments address public cloud requirements. Many cloud-inspired and cloud computing solutions also offer hybrid capabilities, where common infrastructure elements and application programming interfaces (APIs) can be deployed both on-premises and in the public cloud.

2. Embrace Hybrid Capabilities & CIPS:

The ongoing need to support workloads that are located outside public cloud regions means that mixed cloud and non-cloud infrastructure will be needed for the foreseeable future. The market for cloud infrastructure and platform services (CIPS) is significantly changing and has long-term consequences for the future of enterprise IT.

3. Choose The Right Partners and Solutions:

I&O leaders need to determine their preference for a vendor with either an inside-out approach or an outside-in. The inside-out approach entails traditional data center vendors that have added cloud services, while the outside-in approach involves cloud providers that are providing on-premises services. Additionally, leaders need to decide whether to follow a cloud-only or cloud-first approach (SCPS market) or adopt the cloud more moderately (DHI market).