The cloud is complex. It is no longer just a single, static destination but rather an operating model for innovation across the Cloud Continuum. To keep up with the innovation opportunities, distributed infrastructure environments, and applications and data that live everywhere, a new approach for orchestrating this complex environment is needed for organisations to get the most out of the cloud.
By Willie Schoeman, MD in the Technology business and cloud first lead at Accenture in Africa
So how do we solve this complex puzzle and keep pace with a rapidly evolving Cloud Continuum? By having a control plane.
A “control plane” for the continuum
A Continuum Control Plane is a holistic approach to managing the cloud continuum, orchestrating change and driving innovation (including hybrid, multi-cloud infrastructure, applications, data, network, people and processes). Regardless of location, it brings together new approaches and a better-integrated set of tools enabled through new platforms and automation.
The continuum control plane allows developers and operators to automate everyday tasks and workflow at scale. It isn’t a single tool or platform, but an amalgamation of new processes and integrated technologies conducted so that IT runs more efficiently, with more agility, security and predictability.
Today’s IT environment consists of new technology, tools, dependencies, and smaller, discrete workloads across a highly distributed ecosystem. Consider, for instance, intelligent factories that involve thousands of sensors and devices that must be monitored, managed and secured in addition to the network requirements for vastly increased amounts of data involved. To ensure both stability and agility, you need a Continuum Control Plane.
The Continuum Control Plane enables you to unlock the value while mitigating risk. It allows you to govern complexity while encouraging innovation in an agile, independent way. It provides a way to intelligently orchestrate and harness hybrid, multi-cloud infrastructure, on-premise data centres, private clouds, edge computing devices and software-defined and 5G networks toward business goals and adapt as requirements evolve.
It is beyond a cloud management platform
In a multi- and hybrid-cloud world, most enterprises will take advantage of native management and governance capabilities from multiple providers. Although the hyperscalers offer a degree of cross-platform integration, most companies will need a fully unified, agnostic approach to handle their technology investments. It includes the unique industry and country compliance requirements they need to enforce – and deliver a truly seamless Continuum-ready IT environment.
You need a unified orchestration layer to introduce more components into your IT landscape. You’ve got your own data centres, maybe a private cloud and one or more public clouds, but you need something that sits above to manage and enable the broader continuum. It includes Edge, network, cloud and on-prem data centres if you’re to capture the value available fully.
A Continuum Control Plane integrates and orchestrates new cloud-native tools and third-party platforms, which, when embraced at scale, force new ways of working, eliminating manual intervention. It drives new value by connecting capabilities and automating processes and shifts IT spend from operations-centric to engineering-centric outcomes, which is critical to ensuring the IT estate remains aligned to ever-changing business needs. It is differentiated by its extensive use of automation and self-service, radically simplifying how organisations build, manage and consume services across the full range of the continuum.
To fully exploit the opportunities of the Cloud Continuum, you need the means to counter the complexity of integrating, managing, and enabling an increasingly large number of distributed platforms, tools, and devices. The control plane is how you sync all this up.
Unify your Edge
With a Continuum Control Plane, organisations can embrace new practices, giving them the means and discipline to rapidly innovate and support a culture of continuous reinvention across the Cloud Continuum. It enables organisations to balance their need for operational and financial stability with their need for rapid innovation and agility. For example, you need standardisation and rules to control risks such as data breaches, regulatory compliance, security and cost. Yet, at the same time, you need the flexibility to rapidly provision new capabilities and services that allow you to exploit new opportunities and new revenue streams across the continuum.
When organisations have a Continuum Control Plane in place, they are better equipped to adjust and adapt to today’s turbulent market quickly. They can realise their cloud ambitions with more incredible speed and certainty while simultaneously mitigating risk.
Today, if you’re not thinking about orchestrating new ways of working in the Cloud Continuum, a single lens through which you can see and manage your entire IT estate, you will eventually hit a wall. To have stability and agility – covering infrastructure, applications, data, networking, people and processes, you need a Continuum Control Plane.