[Digital Transformation Trends] As cloud computing enters the "hybrid cloud" era, what changes will enterprises' digital transformation usher in?

Cloud computing technology is regarded as the third IT wave after the PC and mobile Internet revolution. It is not only an important support for the development of the information industry, but also a core driving force for helping enterprises to transform digitally.

The widespread use of cloud computing has greatly reduced the cost of enterprise digital construction and optimized traditional operation and management processes. More and more traditional enterprises have realized that moving to the cloud is an important way to achieve digital transformation.

In previous issues of the Intelligence Bureau, Steel has cited many classic cases, such as the digital transformation of famous companies such as Amorepacific Group and CK&B , which all rely on the participation of cloud computing technology.

The application of 5G technology and the development of AI technology have accelerated the pace of digital transformation of enterprises and put forward new requirements for cloud computing services. Faced with such changes, cloud service providers are also actively promoting technological innovation. For example, the concept of "hybrid cloud" that has been repeatedly mentioned in recent years is their summary of the trend of cloud computing development.

What does hybrid cloud architecture mean to enterprises undergoing digital transformation ? What new changes will it bring?

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The so-called "hybrid cloud" is actually a "public-private partnership" in the field of cloud computing . From a technical perspective, the security of private clouds is much higher than that of public clouds. For security reasons, enterprises are more willing to store data in private clouds, but at the same time they hope to obtain computing resources from public clouds. In this case, hybrid clouds are increasingly being adopted, which mix and match public and private clouds to achieve the best results. This personalized solution achieves the goal of both saving money and being safe.

According to the IBM Business Value Institute, 98% of surveyed organizations plan to adopt hybrid cloud architecture by 2021 , but only 38% have the programs and tools needed to run a hybrid environment. How to help enterprises bridge this technological gap will become the focus of cloud service providers' business development.

This requires cloud service providers to provide enterprises with blueprints and corresponding implementation capabilities in the future. In fact, these changes have already begun in the process of cloud computing technology and enterprise digital development.

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First, from the perspective of enterprises, the driving force of transformation and innovation has gradually shifted from consumers to enterprises themselves.

If we regard the "Internet +" era as the first stage, enterprises are more focused on improving services and user experience based on consumer demand and market environment; then in the second stage, enterprises are more focused on driving industrial innovation based on their own transformation and upgrading needs, and digital transformation is changing from "outside to inside" to "inside to outside" .

From the perspective of cloud computing development, the focus of cloud service development will shift from user applications to enterprise data .

Traditionally, when enterprises choose to "move their business to the cloud", they are more about moving applications to the cloud, but rarely involve critical enterprise data. Currently, 80% of the world's enterprise data is still located within the enterprise firewall, which means that 80% of workloads, and even many core applications, are not on the cloud. In the future, how to safely and efficiently move these critical data to the cloud will be a common challenge faced by cloud service providers and enterprises.

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Under such changes, openness and multi-cloud have become a clear and visible trend, and enterprises will also shift their choices from public cloud to hybrid cloud .

According to IBM's research report, 85% of the surveyed companies are already operating in a multi-cloud environment, and 98% of them plan to use hybrid and multi-cloud services within three years. 41% of companies have formulated multi-cloud management strategies, and 38% of companies have programs and tools to run multi-cloud environments.

Driven by the new changes, enterprises are facing more complex challenges regardless of the stage of digital transformation they are in. In a hybrid and multi-cloud environment, enterprises need full-stack solutions covering planning , design, migration, construction, and management .

In recent years, a new variable has emerged in the development of cloud computing: AI (artificial intelligence) .

Just as cloud computing has penetrated into key business of enterprises, AI is also shifting from consumer-oriented to enterprise-oriented, and from consumer scenarios to enterprise-level implementation. In the process of enterprise-level AI implementation, in specific scenarios, enterprises have very clear business needs and expectations for AI. Whether it is the complexity of the needs or the performance and output measurement of AI models, the requirements are getting higher and higher.

Cloud service providers have also proposed a series of new strategies to embed AI into workflows, such as "IA for AI" (information infrastructure is the foundation of artificial intelligence) . Before fully realizing the integration of cloud computing and AI, we should first emphasize how to use IA to build a ladder for AI implementation.

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Without a sound information architecture, it is impossible to pave the way for artificial intelligence.

Based on these situations, IBM proposed the concept of "AI ladder" , which is to build a basic channel between enterprises and AI services, so that AI technology can be gradually implemented like going up and down the ladder. This requires that the "ladder" must be built on an open and secure basis, and requires AI to have perfect data collection capabilities, data organization capabilities, data analysis capabilities , and data fusion capabilities .

Therefore, IBM launched a data and AI platform dedicated to the implementation of enterprise-level AI technology - IBM Cloud Private for Data . This platform is a microservice platform built on cloud native and can be deployed anywhere, such as private cloud, public cloud, and local, so that enterprises can obtain the ability to collect, organize and analyze data through one platform at the same time, without having to obtain it across platforms, products, and manufacturers.

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In fact, every capability demonstrated by the AI ​​platform can be found in the corresponding programs in the commercial software of technology companies, but its comprehensiveness and organic integration with AI technology are not possessed by traditional commercial software.

As an open platform, IBM did not choose to integrate its own technology in a closed manner. Instead, it containerized each individual capability module and delivered it as a microservice so that it can be deployed on various cloud-native architectures.

AI platform is an important direction for the future development of cloud services, and for AI platform, it must adapt to as many different cloud architectures as possible. Therefore, hybrid cloud architecture not only promotes the emergence of AI platform, but will also become an important norm for its future development.

As cloud computing technology enters a new stage, "hybrid cloud" and "multi-cloud" have become important development trends. Cloud service providers will also face more intense market competition. Only by persisting in technological investment and maximizing the integration of AI capabilities into the platform can they provide better services and gain a competitive advantage.

For enterprises that are undergoing digital transformation, the emergence of new trends has made their cloud choices more diverse and complex. This requires enterprises to have a more accurate understanding of how the industry uses cloud computing technology and to formulate more reasonable development plans to give full play to the value of technology and accelerate their own digital transformation with the help of new trends in cloud computing.

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