The Platform Of The Future – Right Workload | Right Platform

Welcome back to part two of this Hybrid Platforms trends series, covering our Platform of the Future messaging. In part one, we looked at our mission, vision, and belief for the future of Hybrid Platforms, along with some of the high-level challenges facing decision-makers. In part two, we are going to delve into how we approach these challenges and look to deliver on our mission statement. 

In future parts, we will explore the focus areas of Hybrid Cloud, Secure Networking, and Data Protection.  

Right Workload | Right Platform  

So, how do we achieve all of this? So far, we have discussed some excellent nirvana outcomes that, for many, could seem like a dim light in the distance, the answer, in part, through our Right Workload | Right Platform mantra. By breaking down the time-tested silos of Edge, Core, and Cloud into our own defined execution environments (Far Edge, Near Edge, Private, Partner, Vendor & Native, more info on these definitions can be found here), we provide the granularity to meet all workload demands.  

Then, we apply our non-biased and outcome-independent approach to assess each workload and deploy a new cloud target operating model that spans all relevant environments. The goal is to determine the needs of each workload running on each platform and ensure measurable business value will be realised from its future execution location.  

By taking a data-driven and objective view of an individual, ecosystem, or entire workload landscape, we can provide options for execution environments that align with all five pillars of The Platform of the Future. The key to this approach is to avoid preconceived norms and hype, allowing the focus to align with the broader organisational outcome. We must be unafraid to do what is proper and correct, even under industry pressure.  

Our belief is that the cloud should be viewed as an operating model and not a location. Technology has advanced in recent years, and we can now support workloads in a more diverse set of locations to meet demands. This mindset leads to our next enabler for realising The Platform of the Future vision: Build Your Cloud. 

Build Your Cloud  

Just placing workloads on the correct execution environments will not lead to the realisation of the vision. One challenge faced by organisations operating in the public cloud is that the operating model was not changed alongside the workload migration. We have seen many examples of virtual machines being migrated to a public cloud with zero change in how they are managed, optimised, or secured. Modern cloud technologies (public and private) offer significant operational advantages that many are not taking advantage of. 

This leads to the second part of our overall approach: to help evolve an organisation’s operating model. By moving to a service-oriented architecture that integrates all workloads requirements under a unified operating model, we hope to remove silos and build what we refer to as your cloud.  

The specific components in each organisation’s cloud will vary. Still, we believe that the future will be hybrid, which means we need an architecture that can adapt to future demands. To conceptualise the possible components to build The Platform of the Future, we defined a six-layer model. 

Conceptual Architecture 

To bring The Platform of the Future to life and provide areas of focus, we have defined a six-layer operating model. Each layer is built to deliver the components of the new target operating model and help decision-makers and architects consider all requirements.  

 Each layer is defined as: 

• Operations: Providing real-time visibility, control and cost management solutions to allow internal teams to deliver effective day-to-day operations. 

• Secure: Data protection, segmentation, zero trust, and DLP requirements are required to secure the technologies deployed to support applications and data. 

• Workloads: Covering the workload landscape of traditional three-tier applications, data platforms and modern application demands. 

• Orchestrate: Multi-Cloud Management Platforms (MCMP) & Internal Developer Platforms (IDP) are deployed to orchestrate the underlying resources through automation and lifecycle management. 

• Execute: Sensors, compute, storage, IaaS and PaaS services, deployed to support applications of all types at the edge in the core and out to the cloud.  
• Fabric: Secure Networking that extends from the Edge to the Cloud, connecting all data, applications and users in a secure and performant manner.  

Under the six layers, we have defined 67 categories of consideration when building out your Platform of the Future. Our teams are on hand to walk you through each and define that new operating model to support the Right Workload | Right Platform approach. I will dig into each layer's details in future posts and reveal some of the 67 areas. 

Focus areas 

As you will likely already know, the topic of the Hybrid Platform category is extensive and complex. Maintaining the technical and commercial expertise required to offer meaningful guidance in the entire portfolio would be impactable.  For this reason, we have broken down the category into three focus areas, allowing for more granular stories, deep expertise and better alignment with objectives. These three go-to markets are backed by a dedicated team of people, partners and services from Advisory through technology sourcing to professional and managed services.  

Below is a summary of our focus areas and the areas of the category they focus on. The next part of this series will discuss each story in detail.  

Hybrid Cloud 

Hybrid cloud covers the technologies that store data and run applications at the edge, in the data centre and into the public cloud. It also incorporates the orchestration and operational components into the Cloud Platforms conversation. A summary of the focus areas for Hybrid Cloud are: 

Next-Gen Data Centre: Will be optimised for virtual machines & data storage that requires long-term hosting. Solutions will be highly automated, have in-depth virtualisation, be simple to operate and be integrated into applications and cloud services. 

Intelligent Edge: Enables data capture and processing at source for real-time decision-making. Solutions will adopt distributed architecture and combine IoT, automation and AI to form the Intelligent Edge. 

Cloud Platforms: These platforms enable services on demand anywhere while being optimised for modern application operations. The solution will be self-service capable, developer-ready, scalable, and on-demand anywhere in the world. 

Secure Networking  

Secure Networking brings together an organisation's end-to-end networking story, spanning from the edge (Wi-Fi, 5g, campus) through the core (datacentre) and out over the wide area network and into the Cloud. It also covers the evolution of SSE and SDWAN into SASE in collaboration with our Security practice. A summary of the focus areas for Secure Networking are: 

Transparent Network: The Transparent Network, like electricity or water... it’s ubiquitous and just works. With the influx of today’s advanced technologies, it’s imperative to have a strong, scalable, transparent network infrastructure. Whether you’re a rural entity or an urban organisation, you require always-connected, always-on mobility via your transparent network infrastructure with the right technology choices for Wireless, DC LAN, Campus LAN, SASE or Cloud. 

Zero Trust Architecture: Implementing a philosophy of assumed breach to secure every point continuously. The challenge of securing the network perimeter has significantly impacted enterprise cybersecurity. However, networks in larger enterprises today may have their perimeters represented by Private DC and SaaS solutions, IoT and mobile devices, and cloud-based and on-premises solutions, reflecting the trend away from the traditional network perimeter.  

Multi-Cloud: Building multi-cloud networking strategies with secure connections that are fit for purpose. We focus on integrating your multi-cloud landscape to bring the performance and agility required to support evolving demands. 

Operations & Observability: Create a better self-aware, automated network, gaining visibility and control of your decisions. Using wire data for end-to-end visibility incorporates unhindered views into the dependencies, cutting across networks, servers, applications, databases, and service enablers.  

Data Protection:  

Data protection is paramount to safeguard your organisation in today's digital landscape. Organisations must navigate complex challenges to protect critical information from hardware failures, cyber threats, human errors, and natural disasters. When we couple the explosion of data and the growing reliance on that data to make critical business decisions, the impact of loss, corruption or inaccessibility will become even more impactful as we move into the future.  

A summary of the focus areas for Data Protection are: 

Data Resilience: The foundation of our Data Protection practice focuses on the ability to continue business operations and quickly recover when unexpected disruptions or loss of availability of data occur. This can be viewed as the current table-stakes level of capability every organisation should adopt. 

Cyber Recovery: Building on the foundational data resilience capabilities, we ensure organisations are prepared for, able to respond to confidently, and ultimately survive a cyber-attack whilst effectively minimising operational disruptions. 

Business Continuity: The ability of the business to respond and adapt quickly to disruptions or changes that threaten operations, people, assets, brand, or reputation 

Conclusion 

Hopefully, this has provided a view of how we approach the complexity of hybrid platforms and the structures we use to help organisations navigate them. The guiding principles of Right Workload | Right Platform are instilled in all our teams and drive our thinking towards evolved operating models. Of course, we realise that the above is somewhat simple and that organisational priorities, commercial realities, and technical restrictions will need to be taken into account.  

Every environment is different, and we realise that the transformation journey is different for every organisation. As with every framework (like ITIL), how it’s applied brings the most value. Our teams are here to help with this, combining our experience with yours for the best outcome. 

Please join me in the next part of this series as we examine each of the go-to markets in detail.