Two experts examine how cloud adjacency can transform how your business handles its data and applications, cutting latency and optimizing performance
The world of IT has many buzzwords, and “cloud adjacency” may seem to be one of them. But cloud adjacency may be a legitimate game changer in an era where quickly accessing huge amounts of data is paramount — especially with the rising demands of artificial intelligence.
It brings users closer to data and applications, providing a host of performance, cost, and other benefits.
Zachary Miller and Brian Thomas discussed the importance of cloud-adjacent storage and data in a Core BTS webinar.
Miller is the Core BTS Field CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Thomas is Senior Manager — Segment Marketing, Digital Strategy at Equinix, a leading digital infrastructure company with proven expertise in successfully implementing cloud-adjacency solutions.
Their wide-ranging conversation provided insights into cloud adjacency, its benefits (including the increased safety of private data), the considerations in implementing it, and the best practices users should adopt.
Understanding Cloud Adjacency
While many organizations have moved to the cloud, with its performance benefits and flexibility, many have left some of their infrastructure on-premises for security and data privacy reasons. However, connecting the cloud and on-site resources through the public internet or a wide-area network (WAN) can be inefficient and costly.
Cloud-only businesses can also face problems and expenses associated with exchanging data with partner networks.
So, by locating private infrastructure in data colocation centers near cloud providers, the businesses create a cloud-adjacent architecture that makes the data and applications easy to access and use, especially when an inefficient and siloed legacy infrastructure is left behind. The colocation centers can also provide cloud on-ramps to major IaaS (infrastructure as a service) and SaaS (software as a service) providers, B2B partners, as well as customers.
“Cloud adjacency is really getting closer to where these applications and, specifically, this data is hosted,” says Miller of Core BTS, who provides the technological vision and strategy across the company’s various client engagements.
Benefits of Cloud Adjacency
By implementing cloud-adjacent data and storage capabilities, companies can create a hybrid multi-cloud environment that improves infrastructure agility, reduces latency, optimizes resource utilization, and keeps sensitive personal data more private and secure.
As well, “It gives you the self-service capabilities to scale up and scale down as needed, to spin up a new interconnection to a cloud provider for seasonality, [or] whatever it might be. So agility and flexibility are key. You don’t have that in legacy architectures,” says Thomas of Equinix.
Traffic spikes can be handled with load-balancing solutions to spread traffic across on-site servers and virtual server instances, which can be added or subtracted as needed, stopping the network from being overwhelmed. The virtual server instances are securely connected to the private infrastructure, allowing them to act temporarily as part of it.
Miller points out that as organizations use more and more applications and need access to great volumes of data, a cloud-adjacent model brings that true cloud feel to an on-premises or private data center and has the same kind of scalability and agility. Being able to connect virtually in minutes saves the time, trouble, and cost of “the typical process of finding a circuit, getting construction fees, turning it up — you know, we’re talking 90, 120 days.”
He adds: “This gives us a lot more flexibility to getting those circuits extended in a much more meaningful way.”
Cybersecurity and Other Considerations
Cybersecurity is always a concern when it comes to AI’s use of big data. So, where the data lives becomes important, especially when one breach can lead to a cascade of serious consequences, including other breaches and system compromises.
Miller wonders if companies are really comfortable sending their private data over the internet. “Or would I rather ingest that data through a more private means or a better connection [of a cloud-adjacent architecture]?” The on-site storage of data can protect it better.
Also, storing data in specific geographic locations can help international organizations comply with different countries’ privacy regulations.
Thomas mentions that when discussing locations of where to deploy cloud-adjacent digital hubs, “density” comes into play. If a geographical area has a high concentration of employees and/or customers, then it makes sense to deploy the hub there, enhancing people’s online experience.
“Again, it’s not rocket science, but it is physics,” he explains. “I say it all the time: The farther a data packet has to travel, the higher the latency is going to be.”
Best Practices of Cloud Adjacency
One significant consideration in cloud adjacency is edge computing delivery of data and services—that is, “client data is processed at the periphery of the network, as close to the originating source as possible.”
Miller explains: “The idea of the edge has drastically changed over the last several years . . . [It] used to be that brick and mortar or that hard data center, things coming in and out. How do we optimize that? . . . The edge is really wherever the data and applications live today, and it’s kind of everywhere. Right?”
He adds: “There’s a lot of monitoring already native to this solution set. It’s not like I have to overlay a hundred different tools just to watch the various edges I’m dealing with. As I’m extending and doing this virtual cross connects, doing that kind of stand up with this kind of cloud adjacency model, I’m instituting that visibility and some of that learning along with it.”
Thomas points out that “digital transformation” means different things to different people. While clients might have different expectations of a cloud-adjacent architecture, they can adopt it with a similar approach.
“You hear [tha]t transformation means, usually with most customers, a slew of things, a laundry list of transformation pieces,” he says. “It’s taking a phased approach to this over time where [you ask yourselves], ‘Alright, which workloads are the most important? Where are you having your, your issues from a customer experience perspective?’”
Companies must ask themselves what they want to achieve over the short and long term. If they’ve had trouble with application performance, for example, hurting customer service, how do they put a process in place to fix the problem?
An Expert Partner Can Help You Make the Transformation
Cloud adjacency offers businesses significant advantages in managing data, applications, and services. Implementing a solution may require many complex considerations, which can make the process as challenging as playing a game of 4D chess.
This is where the right digital transformation partner can come in. Core BTS has impeccable infrastructure and cloud technology credentials, including hybrid environments. Find out how we can help you with a cloud-adjacent solution that takes your game to the next level.
