Distributed Cloud: trends and benefits

Cloud computing trends evolve with new technologies and changing business requirements. Over time, the traditional on-premise infrastructure was supplemented by private and public clouds, resulting in a hybrid cloud management strategy. However, IT departments did not initially recognize it has bottlenecks, such as disconnections between the private and public cloud. While hybrid cloud solutions have been conceived to address this issue, a new cloud trend is gaining momentum — distributed cloud.

By this term, Gartner understands “the distribution of public cloud services to various physical locations, with the original provider responsible for the operation, management, updating and development of the services.” Analysts ranked distributed cloud in the top 10 strategic technology trends for this year.

What is the distributed cloud?

The distributed cloud enables the launch of several public cloud services based on the customer’s infrastructure or the cloud platform. He trusts and suits him in terms of compliance with local regulators’ requirements. This architecture allows, on the one hand, to meet the needs of legislators regarding the transfer of applications to the public cloud, and on the other hand, to ensure proper control over the external cloud and make sure that data storage and processing are performed on physical server facilities within the country. There is no cross-border transfer of confidential data.

It is assumed that the distributed cloud provider is responsible for the overall management of several key processes: for general management, development, control of the life cycle for their design, safety, and reliability.

It means that the provider is responsible for all patches, updates, deployments, and software removal required to update the distributed cloud. The provider also solves the compatibility of various versions of services, ensuring their regular joint operation.

Why is the distributed cloud a trend?

The challenges when using multiple clouds are apparent: you need to distribute data and applications across various cloud resources, considering cost, access speed, regulatory requirements, and company preferences for resiliency. All parameters can be dynamically changed. Therefore, they require constant monitoring and appropriate response, which is problematic for an IT service for obvious reasons. The way out is simple: you need to outsource the proper optimization actions with legislation compliance requirements.

Distributed cloud is a convenient solution for cloud computing. Operators will continue to be responsible for operating, managing, updating, and developing their services while optimally distributing customer data and applications. In this case, the customer is abstracted from the IT infrastructure.

Gartner explains, “Distributed cloud is by definition the first cloud model to include the physical location of cloud services.” Its mission is not to provide a centralized solution for everything but to meet individual service requirements in specific locations. The distributed cloud also provides the means to implement a unified cloud strategy that includes location-based service options.

Perhaps the goal of the hybrid cloud was to provide a unified strategy. However, the bulk of enterprises rarely get the best out of a private cloud because the project is too challenging to implement and bifurcates infrastructure management. In particular, the personal cloud model provides that the customer is responsible for managing and maintaining it both on-premises and in the hosting environment. In contrast, cloud service providers are responsible for collecting and preserving public cloud resources.

The advantage of a distributed cloud is that it provides a shared control plane for public and private clouds. Gartner VP Brian Burke believes it could replace private cloud and provide the foundation for edge cloud deployments and other new cloud computing applications. It can be called the future of cloud computing.

What are the advantages of having a distributed cloud?

High availability

The provider provides round-the-clock operation of its services 24/7/365. The level of availability is specified in a Service Level Agreement (SLA). The SLA prescribes the percentage of service availability for a period — for example, a month. The distributed cloud provides immediate failover by having remote replicas that can be instantly dropped in the event of a failure.

Profitability

Costs are reduced due to the transfer of the expenses from CapEx to OpEx since there is no need for the company’s balance sheet for expensive equipment and software, maintain a staff of engineers and technicians to maintain local IT structures, spend money on electricity and server cooling. When a company’s infrastructure is deployed in a distributed cloud, the customer only pays for the lease of computing power and leases software licenses as needed.

Scalability

Cloud computing and flexible virtualization capabilities allow you to scale your IT infrastructure in line with business needs quickly: increase the number of processor cores, RAM, and disk space, the number of virtual machines, network interfaces, etc. Cloud service providers use modern high-performance Hi-End equipment.

Reliability

The distributed cloud was created primarily to ensure the security of data storage. The level of reliability of the distributed cloud is much higher than that of other resources. It is also due to the decentralization of data placement in the storage. Different servers allow data to be used in any region.

Migration

The high availability of the cloud, great scalability, cost-effectiveness, and security make migration to the cloud an attractive case for small businesses whose business is not related to IT and large companies. The client can move his IT infrastructure to the cloud in part or whole. Simultaneously, the transfer can be carried out without interruption in communication and downtime, having previously tested the service. Complete migration of an extensive infrastructure can be done in just a few days.

Conclusion

With a distributed cloud, you can decentralize your company’s cloud resources. The company will work remotely, and reduce Technical support becomes the cloud service provider’s responsibility.

As this technology is still evolving, it is essential to keep the issues in mind. Sometimes a distributed cloud has complex deployment models and blocking risk. All of this can be avoided if you consult with experts, plan an implementation plan, and create use cases for the distributed cloud.