The Hybrid Cloud: Key step toward IT outsourcing

Everyone is beginning to understand nowadays that the cloud offers more robust storage and extensible computing power at lower cost than traditional ICT infrastructure. What is less known: the cloud is the next frontier in IT outsourcing—and a way to help management focus on the core business.

IT infrastructure outsourcing originally only “lifted and shifted” a company’s legacy IT to a service provider. The next generation of outsourcing was about rationalizing legacy IT and improving performance.

The next generation of outsourcing is about driving economies of scale with virtualized “infrastructure as a service” (IaaS) on dedicated leased hardware in professionally run data centers. Compared to operating your own data center, the new approach offers better infrastructure utilization, uptime and a pay-as-you-use model. It also promises lower cost and lower risk for hardware upgrades, maintenance, obsolescence, license tracking and redundant infrastructure for disaster recovery.

The hybrid cloud has emerged as the platform for outsourcing. It is hybrid in that it integrates:

• A private cloud to handle key business systems and store compliance-sensitive proprietary customer data behind the firewall.
• Software services from a public cloud that are provisioned by a different service provider and used by other companies—to handle for example noncritical, shorter duration projects.

To optimize the cloud, it is best to replace most on-premise systems with off-the-shelf components. These are run on a hybrid cloud in a professionally managed data center, with infrastructure and applications connected to your premises via a broad pipe.

However, some Enterprises require more than a simple Cloud hand-off. An additional layer of service is available with the Open Telekom Cloud from Deutsche Telekom. Open Telekom Cloud has become a value-add supermarket of business applications, offering companies the opportunity to test leading applications like SAP and use them, on a flexible, trial basis. They offer virtual machines (VMs) for specialized needs like graphic and big data applications.

Applications are operated at Deutsche Telekom data centers, and subject to the company’s strict security standards. In those exceptional cases where the application and IT infrastructure is operated by a software partner, adherence to security standards is verified by Deutsche Telekom.

What is the real benefit of the cloud approach to outsourcing? Enhancing your management’s ability to focus on innovating your core business—instead of having to worry about IT infrastructure. Ultimately, this may be the greatest benefit from the coming convergence of IT outsourcing and the cloud.