Hybrid cloud adoption is on the rise. A 2017 survey revealed that 57 percent of companies reported moving towards a hybrid cloud solution in 2016. Yet there are still some misconceptions about what a hybrid cloud is and isn’t. So what does it mean to “go hybrid?”

A reporter with The Enterprisers Project, recently invited several cloud experts to share their multi-cloud tips, and here’s what several experts advised...

As a leader responsible for the IT security and infrastructure of a state and local government agency, you face the same daunting challenges as your private sector colleagues – rapid advances in technology, sophisticated security threats, compliance mandates and aging infrastructures, all with budget constraints growing citizen demands. Here’s the good news: You’re not alone.

Cloud backup is like an insurance policy for your files. Backup is crucial when you consider that 60% of SMBs shut their doors within six months of a data disaster event. Fortunately, businesses are catching on to the urgency of data recovery, with 78% of SMBs expected to integrate to cloud backup by 2020. But before investing in a third-party backup solution, it’s helpful to know what cloud backup is and isn’t.

Cloud technology is evolving rapidly. For forward thinking businesses, the question isn’t whether to adopt a hybrid or public cloud environment, it’s how to adopt a hybrid-cloud strategy. Seventy-seven percent of businesses plan to adopt a hybrid-cloud strategy in the near future, and 86% of enterprises predict they will need a hybrid-cloud solution in the next two years. Where in the journey is your organization?

In 2017, Gartner predicts the worldwide public services cloud market will grow by 18%, primarily due to its ability to foster business agility, scalability, cost benefits, innovation and growth. As the cloud has matured, typical barriers to migration have all but disappeared, including security, compliance, staffing and cost, making the cloud a viable choice for most all organizations.

With the recent WannaCry worm and other ransomware attacks in the spotlight, many small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are taking a good hard look at their data backup solution — and finding it wanting. It’s time for Plan B.

Moving to the cloud is a priority for most. Yet the move to the cloud for many organizations is impeded by the lack of resources needed to successfully migrate applications and services, delaying projects and, in turn, slowing their journey to the cloud. What’s needed is the expertise of a cloud architect.

In this Q&A, we sat down with OneNeck CTO and SVP Product Strategy, Clint Harder, to discuss some of the things he’s seeing in cloud trends and migration pitfalls many of today’s organizations are facing.

Hybrid cloud solutions, combine the best of both private cloud and public cloud and are transforming the way organizations develop and deploy technology solutions.

Today’s businesses are heavily dependent on IT. This increased reliance on 24/7 access to data and mission-critical applications to get business done makes high availability a top priority for IT, especially when leveraging outsourced support.

Smart cities are popping up all over the world as municipal planners marry urban living with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and connected technologies.

With orchestration and automation often used interchangeably when it comes to the cloud, confusion abounds around the difference. So, we decided to clear things up a bit.

Electronic patient records, new healthcare applications, connected medical devices and regulatory/compliance changes are making it easier for doctors to share patient records, affect patient outcomes and increase the quality of care; but are also contributing to an explosion in healthcare data.

Transitioning to the cloud isn’t a decision to be taken lightly. But while organizations will have to relinquish some internal control, thorough research and careful planning will help to avoid those migration speed bumps.

When it comes to cloud security, choosing the right cloud service provider can be a real challenge. While the reasons to add the cloud to your infrastructure varies by organization, one thing is certain — security needs to be a priority.

By leaving outdated hardware and applications intact, organizations are playing a dangerous game.

So, how do you know you’re placing your critical data with a cloud provider that won’t let you down? Because when it comes to the cloud, experience really does matter.

Sensitive business data at rest in the cloud is more vulnerable than ever before. Ensuring that this critical corporate data is secure against unauthorized access and meets any organizational policies, industry or government regulations, is of critical importance to many CIOs.

Businesses today need to move faster than their competitors and respond to changes in their business environment in a rapid and cost-efficient way. The solution – cloud.

Unlike past techno-government initiatives like eGovernment and Government 2.0, digital government isn’t just about adopting new web technologies or developing mobile apps.

Employees want the flexibility to work with the applications and devices they are familiar with that will increase the efficiency and productivity of their teams. The problem is that those very same applications could be increasing your organization's risk if they are not sanctioned for use by IT.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a public framework of best practices guidance for IT service management designed to foster technology-business alignment and business success, and used by OneNeck to add structure to an increasingly unstructured IT environment.

The Cisco Spark Board technology combines wireless presentation capabilities, digital white boarding and video conferencing, and brings a new, simple-to-use, yet powerful, solution that answers the demand of today’s highly-mobile and virtual work environment.

The cloud will dominate as a deployment platform in 2017. Public, private and hybrid cloud implementations will be leveraged to realize economies of scale, improve workforce efficiency and reduce costs

With legacy applications still at the backbone of many operations, it is important to understand that any cloud strategy must include no-cloud options.

There’s no doubt that everyone is full-on in love with the cloud these days, and for many good reasons. The cloud has treated us well and continues to give us many reasons to continue to embrace it. So, if you are considering the hybrid cloud approach, what are some of the benefits you might enjoy?

In order to meet the security and compliance requirements for hybrid cloud deployments, organizations must adopt information security best practices and apply them to the cloud.

Cloud orchestration is quickly becoming a must-have tool for IT staff who need to prepare for the digitization of business. The benefits of cloud orchestration include greater efficiencies, improved scalability, and reduced resource and staff requirements that save time and money.

OneNeck’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions accelerate your business by enabling your own enterprise-class hybrid cloud.

A hybrid IT approach to building a flexible, scalable and efficient architecture allows organizations to maintain a centralized approach to IT governance while experimenting with cloud computing.

As we look to the future of the cloud, we not only need to consider the impact on business operations but on IT infrastructure as well. CIOs are embracing the benefits that come from adopting modern hybrid IT solutions, but there are seven key technology trends that will shape and evolve the cloud ecosystem in the years to come.

As organizations increasingly move to the cloud, security has become a bigger concern. IT departments are having a more difficult time controlling user access and understanding where their data resides, making it harder to distinguish between what is inside vs. outside the perimeter.

The adoption of cloud is on the rise as more and more companies come to understand the massive advantages of doing business in the cloud. Particularly popular are "hybrid" cloud solutions that allow users to reap the benefits of both on-premises and cloud technologies at the same time.

Microsoft Azure is known for its excellent security measures, but the responsibilities must be shared between the vendor and the enterprise.

Digital disruption is changing the way we do business, but many organizations fear change. It’s brought about by the perfect storm of low-cost communications (e.g., mobile networks, smart devices and sensors.) Organizations who embrace the digital age are rewarded with more efficient operations, an improved customer experience and the ability create better products and services to face future competition with ease.

Tight budgets and regulations mean the State and local agencies, as well as educational institutions, are looking to move to the cloud, but are often unsure of how best to proceed.

Only 1 in 4 businesses have a long-term digital strategy and that is a problem.

Keeping sensitive data safe and secure is priority but the effort and resources required to keep pace are immense. Cloud may be the answer.

The cloud and the Medical Internet of Things will revolutionize healthcare and improve patient outcomes. For organizations trying to meet cost constraints, the cloud offers options to reduce overhead expenses while keeping up with the latest technology advancements.

Executives repeatedly indicate that the top business imperatives for enterprises are centered on financial performance metrics that involve optimizing profits, growing revenue and driving down costs, and they are increasingly turning to managed services. A hybrid IT environment combines internal and external resources, and may consist of some combination of traditional on-premises, hosted solutions or cloud-based SaaS, PaaS or IaaS services.

What do Thanksgiving turkey and IT resources have in common?

The cloud is vital for every enterprise to transform business practices and remain competitive. At the 2016 Gartner Catalyst Conference, Mindy Cancila of Gartner spoke of building a cloud-first strategy in business and how to make cloud computing "preferred, promoted and prioritized" in organizations. Cancila talked about the importance of not losing best practices from the data center and outlined six specific steps that organizations should take in developing a cloud-first architecture and strategy.

Are you running out of space and capacity in your data center? Today, with the adoption of cloud, several opportunities exist to eliminate this IT challenge.

A hybrid cloud approach, using both private and public cloud resources, allows IT to remain agile and seamlessly move workloads between an on-site data center, public cloud and private cloud. The cloud becomes an extension of on-premises infrastructure and provides new ways to extend capabilities, increase agility and help the bottom line.

Do workload demands have your equipment performing poorly? The cloud may be your answer to this common IT problem.

The cloud can seem like a scary prospect with fears that stem from keeping data secure, visibility and true costs. But while it's smart to be cautious with the cloud, those that take the time to ask questions and learn what it really entails soon find that the cloud actually offers key business benefits that would be far scarier to pass up.

CIOs are now tasked with directives to reduce costs, increase efficiencies and drive innovation, and the cloud is the catalyst for realizing these strategic advantages. However, the challenge in successfully executing a cloud strategy lies in successfully identifying and prioritizing the forces driving change.

In cloud governance, enterprises apply specific policies or principles to the use of cloud computing services with the goal of securing all remote applications and data. Successfully implementing cloud governance at the data, service and platform-level can reduce complexity and provide visibility, all while increasing the security of your cloud infrastructure.

Cost, oh yeah, that's a concern in every IT decision. And working within a budget is required!

Mobility gives you the opportunity to engage with your customers in new and exciting ways.  A mobile-first strategy enables you to build a deeper relationship with your customers, personalize communications and be more responsive to needs in the moment.

Aging IT infrastructure presents a number of challenges for organizations. For answers, IT leaders are looking to the cloud.

As government IT infrastructure ages, the need to embrace a digital strategy has become even more critical. State and local governments are continually called on to do more with less. Not only must they strive to satisfy an increasingly demanding constituency that expects services to be always-on and delivered at real time, but they must do so in the face of a reduced staff and budget. What’s needed is a digital strategy that enables government leaders to drive productivity, engagement, and innovation – without breaking the budget.

Hybrid Cloud adoption is rising, but is it the right solution for your enterprise? Private cloud infrastructures can be costly, and with the dedicated investment in innovation in the public cloud, a hybrid solution may not be the right infrastructure decision. Hybrid IT is a rising solution to operate a non-cloud IT infrastructure in tandem with public or private cloud. The bottom line is that each organization needs to assess their needs and make a decision that works for their unique business environment.

Gartner has predicted that by 2019, public cloud service providers will handle 20% of healthcare provider IT workloads, and that healthcare providers will increasingly adopt cloud services that involve protected healthcare information (PHI) to keep pace with the IT infrastructure, system and support requirements of the real-time healthcare system.

Is recruiting and retaining application and infrastructure IT expertise holding your organization back from accomplishing your IT goals? A viable option to bridging your resource gap is with the cloud.

Organizations are struggling to find the right talent to design and implement a cloud strategy. The struggle to find cloud resources has impeded many organizations plans to migrate applications and infrastructure to the cloud.

According to Gartner, the cloud will impact more than $1 trillion in compounded IT spending over the next five years, making cloud computing one of the most disruptive forces in IT spending since the first days of the digital age. Many factors are driving the shift to the cloud, such as complementing or completely replacing existing IT systems and digital transformation that will allow organizations to reduce capital expenditures and create a more agile IT organization.

The technology sector has been growing faster than other segments of the economy, and many top technology companies have been dubbed as “best places to work” because of their drive to innovate and challenge the status quo.

BYON has arisen because employees, contractors and consultants working for your organization feel that either the network is too slow, there are too many restrictions on access or they need to circumvent security in order to get their job done. Whatever the reason, BYON is a liability to your organization causing you risk to network and data, and it needs to be addressed.

Large enterprises are using a combination public, private and hybrid clouds, as well as virtualized data centers, but multi-cloud environments are complex to maintain. Enterprise Cloud Governance allows organizations to centralize control, improve security and meet compliance mandates through a single pane-of-glass approach. By acknowledging a new approach is needed, IT can broker cloud services and allow users the flexibility to adopt new solutions without going back to the practices that caused the adoption delays of the past.

Colocation services, in which data centers operations are hosted in a professionally run and managed hosting facility, are seeing fast growth, with 451 Research projecting the global colocation market to be worth $36 billion by 2017, up from $22.8 billion in 2015. Colocation is a cost-effective, secure solution for companies who do not want to establish an internal data center and need access to a more flexible solution that will scale with their operations.

Recovering your data and services to be up and running in the event of a disaster, whether caused by a natural disaster or a mouse chewing through a cord, is critical to keep your business operational. Traditional disaster recovery is expensive, so expensive in fact that many operations forgo the practice and just keep their fingers crossed. DRaaS offers a less expensive and more reliable method to backup and recover data from any event that may affect your business operations.

A vulnerability in the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) code of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a reload of the affected system or to remotely execute code.

Do you know all of the cloud services at use in your organization on a given day? Have you heard of Shadow IT? It’s quickly becoming a big issue as business units add new cloud services on their own —unwilling to wait for IT to vet, test, approve and implement them. This practice can cause issues for your organization and could compromise data security. Instead of shutting it down, though, IT must learn to embrace Shadow IT and find ways to make it easier for employees to get the services they need while maintaining control over the company’s data.

Hybrid clouds bring the best of both worlds and ensure IT infrastructure closely aligns with the needs of business. A recent State of the Cloud Survey finds that nearly three-quarters of today’s enterprises are using a hybrid infrastructure and adoption rates have increased from 58% in 2015 to 71% in 2016. As more organizations consider a hybrid IT strategy they should keep seven key factors in mind.

Insider threats from employees and business partners represent one of the largest risk factors organizations face. IBM found that in 2015, 55% of breaches came from the inside. Even though almost half of these attacks were inadvertent rather than malicious, IT departments need to be prepared to prevent and mitigate internal security threats.

Losing precious data during a disaster — be it natural, human error or breach — can cost your company dearly. FEMA estimates that more than 40 percent of businesses never recover. It’s critical that organizations have disaster recovery and business continuity plans in place. Interestingly, Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity (BC) are often used interchangeably even though they represent very different activities. In fact, interchanging the two can leave your organization at significant risk.

In the manufacturing sector, there are cycles based on customers’ seasonal demand. To accommodate these cycles, manufacturers want to be able to adjust production and distribution using enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions and other software tools while minimizing demand on existing IT resources. Scaling the data center infrastructure to meet peak periods of demand once or twice each year would mean having servers and systems remaining idle most of the time. Rather than wasting resources, more manufacturers are turning to hosted solutions to manage manufacturing and distribution.

According to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and the need for adaptation, we must constantly adjust to environmental changes in order to survive. He famously said, “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” When applied to the digital era, many would say the same is true for business today. In the age of Digital Darwinism, figuring out where to invest your IT resources can be challenging. Pioneering companies are embarking on a strategy of digital transformation. To do so effectively, organizations must address how technology is affecting the behavior of customers and employees. Businesses need to update their IT systems and strategies, including legacy technology. They must also develop ways to improve customer experiences and relationships.

Selecting the right colocation provider is a critical decision that will shape your organization for years to come. There are a number of questions to ask in order to make sure your colocation provider is enabling your cloud environment to grow for years to come.

Before you make a move to the cloud, it’s important to understand all your options and what is the best fit for your organization. With options such as software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), choosing the right option for your business can be overwhelming.

As organizations needs change, so do infrastructure needs, and the ability for a cloud deployment to adapt to dynamic environments is increasingly more important. Portability in the cloud is a critical factor in achieving optimal productivity and profitability for your organization. Document where your data lives, planning ahead and choosing the right environment to make portability possible – it’s critical to the success of your cloud deployment.

Choosing the right Managed Service Provider (MSP) is a critical decision for the success of your hyperscale cloud deployment. Understanding your infrastructure and your application requirements will help your organization choose the right MSP to deploy the best hyperscale cloud solution for your organization.

Early on, the only choice for deploying ERP applications in an organization was to fully deploy and manage the entire system on premises, which required a high level of in-house expertise and resources, making it only feasible for large enterprises. The cloud opened up new possibilities, but the complexity of ERP still posed serious challenges. Managed Cloud Services have now entered the picture to ease IT’s burden for successfully managing their ERP applications.

By teaming up with OneNeck for your Managed Microsoft Azure solution, you have even more choices when deciding which cloud makes sense for your workloads. Plus, you get the added value of OneNeck managing all your services. By combining Azure with OneNeck’s robust monitoring tools and managed services expertise, you can quickly add new services and cloud resources to address changing business needs. Our support team handles the design, implementation and management so you can focus on building your business, rather than supporting the infrastructure.

Whether public, private or hybrid, the cloud is now the most common deployment platform. In fact, research shows that around 88 percent of buyers who had a deployment preference preferred the cloud over on-premise. But even with the surge in confidence and adoption, many organizations still have concerns about security in the cloud. Cyber threats are a real and present danger and cybercriminals are hard at work trying to breach both cloud and on-premise deployments every day.

Regardless of their size, organizations today must keep up with the speed of business to remain competitive and profitable. Yet, it has become increasingly difficult to focus on the strategic aspects of business when the company is bogged down by routine tasks. Nowhere is this more of an issue than in IT, where daily operational tasks consume the bulk of critical resources, leaving little time to focus on reducing risk and streamlining processes to minimize costs, maximize customer satisfaction and increase shareholder value.

The majority of companies now view a hybrid cloud – some combination of public and private cloud usage – to be optimum for an effective IT strategy. When seeking to develop a hybrid cloud strategy, companies with highly optimized hybrid strategies are aware of workloads and use consistent SLAs regardless of private or public cloud deployment. While the top performing companies with successful hybrid cloud strategies manage their workloads as a matter of course, smaller companies may not have either the skills or the resources to manage workloads in house. Companies that understand the benefits of an optimized hybrid strategy may want to engage with a partner for hybrid cloud help.

At OneNeck, we are a partner that understands your IT challenges, cares about your business needs, and loves to see you succeed. However, in a world of many clouds, the path to success can be challenging. As a partner that's in it with you through thick and thin, we’re here to help navigate the many choices and make sure your apps are in the right cloud at the right time.

Did you know? According to ActualTech Media, over 50% of IT professionals plan to deploy hyperconvergence in the next 24 to 36 months. Hyperconverged infrastructure IT is a new hot trend.

Are you considering an Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) strategy in your organization, but aren’t quite sure where to start? It can be overwhelming, as not one size fits all organizations, and navigating the options can be daunting.

Dr. Joseph E. Murray, the doctor who performed the first successful kidney transplant, often quoted Aristotle: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” While the phrase is interpreted in many ways, Dr. Murray’s philosophy was that cooperation among a team of prepared minds with skilled hands and effective tools was the surest way to success. Using this mindset, Dr. Murray and his team were able to make the dream of organ transplantation a reality more than 50 years ago.

In part one of this series we discussed and dispelled popular cloud security myths. In part two, we examined regulatory compliance and in part three, we discussed data portability. Here, we are talking cloud costs.

Building a network that supports cloud computing, whether it be public, private or hybrid, requires more than some extra bandwidth to deliver the potential the cloud can bring to an organization.

As every successful business knows, data fuels growth. Ensuring the security and accessibility of your data is critical. However, these items are not mutually exclusive, and are both critical factors in fostering the growth that is necessary to compete in the global marketplace.