Managed Cloud Services: Architecting the Optimal Hybrid Cloud

This IDC Market Perspective provides insight into the value enterprises place on using private and public clouds as part of hybrid cloud engagements involving managed cloud services. This document also provides a strategy for managed service providers (SPs) in creating an optimal model for a hybrid cloud that can support critical customer requirements in utilizing managed cloud services."The combination of enterprises utilizing hybrid clouds to meet an array of business and IT needs as part of managed cloud services and increased competitive pressures from cloud SPs' ability to provision their own hybrid clouds is placing pressure on managed SPs to deliver an optimized hybrid cloud set of capabilities," says David Tapper, program VP, Outsourcing and Managed Cloud Services at IDC. "Optimizing opportunities with managed cloud services in support of hybrid clouds will require managed SPs to create a unique value proposition that emphasizes an end-to-end, pay-as-you-go hybrid cloud service supporting data sovereignty, the move to opex, and agility to repatriate from public clouds; build a delivery infrastructure for the private cloud portion of hybrid cloud by creating a private landing zone structure that mirrors that of public clouds in provisioning a pool of common private cloud infrastructure; ensure operational excellence of hybrid clouds through the deployment of a business operations center and a multicloud management platform that provide an "air traffic" control set of capabilities; establish critical partnerships involving public cloud providers, OEMs, and colocation (hosting) providers; and enable the use of key technologies such as IoT, 5G, and edge computing as part of hybrid clouds.