Page 31 - FCW, June 30, 2016
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ExecTech
Choose your weapon:
Public cloud or HCI?
The two options are vying for attention as agencies seek to modernize their IT systems and data centers
BY PAUL KORZENIOWSKI
Traditionally, IT systems have not been very pliable. Deploying new hardware, applications and updates has often been a mundane, tedious, manual task.
“IT departments spend 70 percent to 75 percent of their budget just keeping their legacy systems running,” said Chris Howard, vice presi- dent of federal sales at Nutanix.
With pressure mounting to roll out more services more quickly, change is needed. “Agencies have been on the lookout for more agile, flexible data center infrastructures,” said Christian Perry, a practice manager and principal analyst at Technology Business Research.
First, public cloud emerged to fulfill that desire. More recently, hyper- converged systems have begun to offer another option.
Why it matters
Market research firm Gartner expects spending on public cloud services to reach $204 billion in 2016, a 16.5 percent increase from 2015. One reason they have become so popular is that they provide CIOs with a simple way to deploy services quickly. The ability to have a new system up and running with a few clicks of a mouse meshes nicely with agen- cies’ need for speed and flexibility.
As public cloud gained ground, premises-based systems lost momen- tum. “Hyper-converged systems are gaining interest because they provide cloud-like benefits for premises solutions,” said Andrew Butler, a vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.
So as they look to upgrade their current systems or deploy new appli- cations, agency CIOs increasingly find themselves evaluating the two options.
The fundamentals
Cloud and hyper-converged systems are piggybacking on the virtualiza- tion movement that has transformed the data center. Traditional appli- cation and system software were tightly coupled with the underlying hardware. Therefore, changing systems was complex because it involved tinkering with a variety of autonomous systems that had grown increas- ingly complicated through the years.
HCI by the numbers
70-75%
the amount of budget spent by IT departments to keep legacy systems running, according to Chris Howard of Nutanix
$204 billion
the amount that will be spent on public cloud services in 2016, according to Gartner
16.5%
the increased amount of spending on public cloud services from 2015
50%
the compound annual growth rate by which worldwide sales of hyper- converged infrastructure platforms will increase from 2015 to 2020, according toTechnology Business Research
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