Successfully implementing a hybrid cloud environment is challenging. Therefore, employing the right talent to manage it is crucial, writes Shunsuke Takagi, head of global hybrid IT offerings at Fujitsu.
In an era when public cloud computing is so well established, with so many obvious benefits, there are still many reasons why companies maintain on-premises infrastructure or “private cloud”. Regulatory compliance, security, latency, and legacy apps too complex to migrate are the main motives.
What results is a “hybrid cloud”. — a mix of public and private cloud usage – that now constitutes the standard IT environment in nearly all organizations.
But no matter how pervasive and effective the hybrid cloud has become; it has its complexities. You can’t just spin up public cloud capabilities alongside a private cloud and expect everything to work out fine. Gartner’s recent research predicts that 60% of infrastructure and operations leaders will experience public cloud-migration cost overruns in the next three years.
People underpin effective deployment
These regular cost overruns highlight a more detailed picture of inadequate planning, often caused by skills shortages: Many organizations don’t have and can’t find people with the skills and experience needed to guide these projects home on time and budget.
New research from Fujitsu backs this up. It shows a quarter (24%) of companies say a lack of skills in the workforce is their biggest concern when it comes to managing their hybrid cloud environment.
The research identified a small group of companies that have already used hybrid cloud infrastructures to build resilience and accelerate business transformation goals. These hybrid cloud leaders, representing a third (33%) of the sample, are investing in skills to a much greater extent than their peers: 38% provide continuous training to their IT employees, compared to 20% of the rest.