Hybrid Environment: Bridge between Public and Private Cloud Computing

This week’s guest speaker Dean Paron, a veteran of Microsoft, talked about Microsoft’s public cloud computing service, Azure. During the class, he presented a few case studies. The first was an NGO called Urban Refuge that created a mobile app to locate refugees in urban areas using Azure’s public cloud computing service. Another was a San Mateo-based start-up called Frame, which delivers high-resolution graphic images to low CPU or GPU devices such as mobile phones. In addition to these customers, Paron also presented CarMax, one of their enterprise partners who sells used cars online and offline. One of the most intriguing comments he made was about a hybrid solution. He said, “although their web-front and all of their images are online [in the public cloud], the things like financing and inventory are still based on the old premise’s [private] infrastructures.” ¹ It seems that this kind of hybrid solution is quite common, especially amongst enterprise customers. I have come to believe that this hybrid model is the key bridge to the future of enterprise public computing.

Public cloud computing has become a maturing market, where major players are now clearly trying to differentiate themselves from other providers. For example, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is currently the most dominant player in the public cloud computing space, according to the market figures. CNBC reported, “In the first quarter [of 2018], Amazon controlled one-third of the market for cloud infrastructure services, according to Synergy Research Group.”² While AWS is still dominating the market, Microsoft Azure seems to be catching up. This is because Azure is favored by enterprise customers, since it embraces hybrid environments where public and private cloud computing can be easily integrated. For example, “Microsoft Azure can hook into all those Windows Server customers in the enterprise data center and stretch into its cloud,” ³ according to CBS Interactive. If Azure’s public cloud and Microsoft’s enterprise customers’ data centers can be easily integrated, Azure will have an advantage. Furthermore, Forbes mentioned that “[Microsoft’s] CEO Satya Nadella’s hybrid-first vision encompasses the ‘entire digital estates’ for business customers, something no other enterprise-tech vendor can match.”⁴ This kind of emphasis from a major company’s CEO signals not only the future of the hybrid model but also the direction the public computing business is headed.

During the class, Paron said, “60% of computing [will be] in the public cloud by 2025.”¹ Considering the speed technology evolves nowadays, this figure seemed to be rather low. I believe the reason is that, despite the many benefits public computing may present, many customers (especially the enterprise customers) will keep their data or parts of their data in their own private computing space. The sense of ownership of their data is significant in those decision makers’ minds. Therefore, the hybrid environment can be a key bridge to the future of the enterprise public computing business.

 

References

1. Paron, Dean (2018), Remarks in MS&E 238 class, Summer Quarter 2018.
2. Novet, Jordan (2018), Microsoft narrows Amazon’s lead in cloud, but the gap remains large. Retrieved from CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/27/microsoft-gains-cloud-market-share-in-q1-but-aws-still-dominates.html.
3. Dignan, Larry (2018), Top cloud providers 2018: How AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, Oracle, Alibaba stack up. Retrieved from CBS Interactive: https://www.zdnet.com/article/cloud-providers-ranking-2018-how-aws-microsoft-google-cloud-platform-ibm-cloud-oracle-alibaba-stack/.
4. Evans, Bob (2018), Microsoft, Amazon And IBM: Which Cloud Powerhouse Will Top Q1 Revenue Charts?. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/04/09/microsoft-amazon-and-ibm-which-cloud-powerhouse-will-top-q1-revenue-charts/.