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Cloud
Enabling Enterprise Agility & Resilience with a Robust Cloud Strategy
Highlights
- Hybrid cloud has merited a place among the chief enablers of efficient business models in today’s technology ecosystem and is regarded as the booster of core innovation.
- Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can strengthen a hybrid cloud strategy and pave the path to accelerated business value realization while creating an adaptable IT estate.
- The fusion of hybrid cloud with AI can lead to better control, flexibility, resilience, and security, and expand the avenues for innovation.
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The hybrid path value
A hybrid cloud strategy enables seamless orchestration of a heterogenous IT environment, including public and private cloud, and on-prem Infrastructure.
Enterprises leverage hybrid cloud to tap technology landscape’s immense potential to unlock new frontiers and strengthen innovation.
TCS’ Thought Leadership Institute conducted the TCS Global Cloud Study to know how cloud drives business innovation. This study examines cloud evolution from an IT-centric solution to a critical business strategy and explores how the survey respondents employ strategic cloud capabilities for innovation. As per this study, nearly three-quarters of enterprises surveyed use hybrid cloud.
One of the best ways of accelerating value realization is to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) with hybrid cloud from the strategy phase.
The AI-cloud edge
Artificial intelligence (AI) can drive optimal cloud resource management.
Effective resource management ushers in improved performance, reduced costs, and better consolidation and integration of cloud operations.
The ‘TCS AI Business Study’ analyzed how global leaders and decision makers are responding to AI’s transformative potential. This research reveals that for most organizations, AI implementation is in process or completed and there is excitement and positive sentiment towards AI.
- 59% of corporate functions are in the process of or have completed AI implementation.
- 57% are optimistic about AI’s potential impact on their business.
- 54% are confident that its results will be the same or may even surpass those of internet.
- 75% have identified restructuring as a necessity for reaping maximum AI benefits.
The fusion of hybrid cloud and AI can lead to better control, flexibility, resilience, and security. Worldwide enterprises, as part of their generative AI (GenAI) initiatives, look up to hybrid cloud models for more innovation avenues. An effective AI-driven hybrid cloud strategy can be a gamechanger in enterprises’ pursuit for best results. Enterprises must curate a future-forward hybrid cloud strategy for continually evolving and keeping up with the changing needs. We recommend the below approach for making a hybrid cloud strategy robust, sound, and adaptable.
Best of both worlds
As AI and cloud are two of the most prominent change agents in today’s technology ecosystem, it is imperative to tap into their synergy.
This union, especially that of hybrid cloud and AI IT operations (AIOps) can work wonders in hybrid cloud management as it can bring about multiple benefits such as:
Enriching customer experiences: Harness the AI potential for evaluating customer data and seeking invaluable insights into behavioral patterns and preferences. AI- and cloud-powered solutions can help forecast customer demands, which can help you tweak your offerings in line with their expectations, leading to customer experience enrichment.
Sound decision-making: AI-driven cloud can enable speedy and accurate processing of data patterns and sets of data-oriented enterprises, especially banking, finance, insurance, and healthcare. This feature boosts enterprises’ ability to analyze vast data sets and make well-informed decisions basis insightful judgements.
Proactive, predictive, resilient cloud management, and operational efficiency: AI can be a boon as it has immense potential to:
- Enhance cloud resiliency
- Enable optimum resource utilization
- Improve overall performance in the face of changing demand
- Identify patterns and irregularities in bulk data
- Monitor system performance
- Detect, predict, and prevent likely failures or outages
AIOps can enhance and automate IT operations spanning several capabilities, like anomaly detection, unified monitoring, event correlation, root cause analysis, and predictive analytics. When coupled with automation, AIOps becomes a vital approach for managing complexity and ensuring seamless operations.
Augmenting data security, sovereignty, and mitigating risk: Detecting cyber threats and identifying network traffic inconsistencies in real time are some of the crucial tasks that AI algorithms perform. However, with AI advancements, ultra-modern AI-based security threats can also come into play. Many enterprises have taken cognizance of this threat and have invested— others are planning to invest—in defensive AI competencies to combat AI-based security threats at scale.
Almost every nation has distinct data sovereignty and security rules that evolve with geopolitical and economic developments. Data sovereignty comes into effect when two or more nations are involved in the collection and processing of data. AI can be a key player in enabling compliance with sovereignty and regulatory norms in various geographies.
Resource optimization and cost management: AI algorithms can avoid over-provisioning by predicting workload patterns and dynamically allocating resources to meet the demand, thereby ensuring optimal utilization of public and private cloud.
By continuously analyzing cost and performance metrics, AI can recommend the most cost-effective cloud services and configurations that reduce operational expenses. A new branch of FinOps is based on this aspect of AI.
The AI-cloud strategy
AI adoption can be boosted if it can generate exceptional value.
To realize the full potential of AI, there must be a meticulous and responsible execution of governance and strategy. Articulating sound AI propositions, inextricably linked to enterprise purpose, mission, and values is fundamental to AI governance and strategy. Likewise, upholding AI explainability that manages and resolves ethical and legal issues related to AI systems is of paramount importance. Here are a few steps for curating an efficient cloud strategy:
Foresight: Having a vision for AI and cloud integration is a crucial part of the strategy. This can be in two parts, say AI strategy and foundational strategy. A foresight should be your basis for charting out a clear AI-driven hybrid cloud strategy, which should factor immediate, middle-term, and long-term enterprise objectives. A holistic analysis of the current status quo is the first step in outlining the objectives.
Make it scalable and agile: An agile and a scalable strategy is a must if you want to make the most of the advanced and trending technologies like AI, analytics, machine learning, blockchain, and internet of things (IoT). Also, a scalable solution often translates into more efficient processes and thousands of saved manhours.
A hybrid cloud enables the integration of various systems resulting in seamless data sharing and collaboration among different cloud service providers and stakeholders.
Interoperability between cloud environments can be managed by a single pane of glass on the application level.
Define your industry-specific business needs: Your mission, vision, and objectives are distinct from those of your competitors, so should your hybrid cloud strategy. Enterprises must know that a one-size-fits-all approach is no longer feasible. Your strategy must lay emphasis on robust security while complying with evolving statutory and regulatory standards. Also, evaluate your workload that will lead to the consumption of cloud resources.
Collaborate with the cloud service provider (CSP), whose expertise best matches your requirements as you can seek contextualized solutions to attain value faster. Having a competent strategic partner as an advisor to anchor the complete cloud journey for enterprise cloud adoption is vital.
Have a clear road map: Clearly define your hybrid cloud goals and articulate how it will contribute to the enterprise’s excellence and growth. The AI-driven hybrid cloud strategy must factor in the fact that your cloud journey should be as unique as your growth journey. As cloud experts are scarce, there is a talent war that is likely to intensify. To strengthen your talent pool, you must project the manpower requirement post identifying the skills gap and plan for upskilling the existing personnel well in advance.
An eye on cost optimization: Carrying out migration, modernization, and transition in a phased manner while prioritizing cloud nativity helps in budget control. Legacy infrastructures can have a direct bearing on the costs due to high maintenance and inflexible architecture. With the influx of future-forward technologies, there could be a talent crunch of those who can operate and maintain a legacy system, leading to high wage payouts.
Enterprises worldwide are looking at reversing or minimizing the business and financial impact of technical debt. Cloud and AI can play a pivotal role in technical debt reduction with a host of features like agility, consistency, speed, and continuous monitoring.
Adaptability is key
Technologies such as AI-driven hybrid cloud can empower global enterprises to adapt to perpetual business dynamics.
The trademark of today’s businesses is uncertainty due to various volatilities and dynamics that continue to happen at a frenzied pace. One of the significant business imperatives for enterprises is to usher in the feature of perpetual adaptability by leveraging the vast technology ecosystem. AI-driven hybrid cloud, due to its unique interoperable architecture, can strengthen adaptability, which in turn can offset or minimize the uncertainties or the impact thereof.
In the current era, businesses must factor in such dynamics as the way forward rather than consider them as stumbling blocks enroute to growth. The AI-driven hybrid cloud solutions must help enterprises circumvent these dynamics or better still make them a mainstay of the business strategy.
The road ahead
Despite all the merits associated with AI, you must first assess the scope and feasibility of your AI aspirations objectively.
Enterprises must ascertain the demands imperative for their business--their internal and external readiness for AI adoption from the standpoint of technology. This evaluation can help enterprises rate the feasibility as immediate, short-term, and long-term.
A futuristic approach for AI-driven hybrid cloud strategy is crucial to gain a competitive edge, empower businesses to continually evolve, and keep up with changing needs and trends. AI and cloud integration is the key for unlocking future-forward opportunities like edge computing and quantum computing. Collaboration with best-in-the-business CSP can go a long way in empowering enterprises curate an AI-driven hybrid cloud strategy that is robust, sound, and adaptable.
