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An IDC InfoBrief

The Future of Connected Cloud Architecture

Charting the Path to Digital Infrastructure in Asia/Pacific
IDC Doc #AP241257IB August 2021
© IDC | 1
Executive summary
The disruption caused by COVID-19 has upended
enterprise technology roadmaps and led to the
reallocation of resources in favour of technologies
such as cloud, which enable resilience and power
innovation. IDC’s findings reveal that the pandemic
has sharply accelerated the move to cloud, and
cloud-related IT spending now exceeds spending
on traditional, non-cloud infrastructure. A hybrid
and multicloud world is clearly in our future.
The ability to build applications that leverage
modern, cloud-native technologies such as
containers and cloud-first (and increasingly cloud-
only) services and innovations, to allow enterprises
to rapidly react to customer and end-user
demands is a significant part of the appeal of cloud.
Containers enable workloads to be more portable
and deployable into modern infrastructure at a
higher density, as well as across diverse cloud
environments, underscoring their importance in
our hybrid cloud future.
AN IDC INFOBRIEF
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THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
However, today's typical hybrid cloud is
premised on a patchwork of disconnected
cloud silos. Interconnectivity is achieved
through a mix of cloud-specific APIs and
management tools. As such, this connectivity is
custom-made and brittle! The success of the
hybrid cloud model will rely heavily on the
ability of enterprises to migrate and integrate
workloads and data running in different types
of cloud environments…
This IDC InfoBrief explores what seamless
interoperability and consistent performance
across diverse cloud environment entails; and
how enterprises can leverage a connected
cloud architecture to realise the enormous
promise of a multicloud future.
2
Impact of COVID-19: Crisis! But this time IT is different…
IT is viewed very differently post-pandemic than during the last global economic slowdown.
The disruption caused by COVID-19 has significantly impacted enterprise operations. And yet, the situation in 2020
was very different from that of the Financial Crisis of 2008.

Decline in global GDP versus IT spending during global crises

-4%

2008 to 2009
Real GDP -6%
Real GDP 55%
of respondents to the
The fall in total IT 2019 to 2020 2021 C-Suite Tech Survey1
spending exceeded global have viewed IT as more
But IDC estimates that during
GDP decline by over 4%.2 strategic since the
2020 the plunge in global GDP
was 6%, significantly more than beginning of the COVID-19
the drop in IT spend.2 pandemic

-9% -2.5%
IT spending IT spending

AN IDC INFOBRIEF
Source: 1) IDC’s C-Suite Tech Survey 2021, February 2021, n = 909; 2) IDC research Sponsored by: 3
THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
The pandemic has accelerated migration of data and apps
to cloud
IDC’s findings reveal that the COVID-19 pandemic has directly resulted in enterprises increasing spending on cloud
in the Asia/Pacific region.
Cloud spend intentions Top three drivers driving cloud
98% spending beyond budget
93% 93%
86% 38%
78% 78%
17% 13%

Public Financial Telco/ Manufacturing Wholesale/ Professional

sector services IT services Retail services COVID-19 Increase in price Increased
pandemic by providers complexity of cloud
A 2020 IDC survey of Asia/Pacific enterprises found that: environment

Actual spending on
cloud for 2020
The trend
towards
89% COVID-19 was the most significant
driver of this increased spend as
of Asia/Pacific
would far exceed increased cloud enterprises scrambled to enable
enterprises has
the amount spend is secular remote work, diversify sourcing
accelerated migration of
originally budgeted and across all and build operational resilience by
data and apps to cloud
verticals leveraging the cloud
due to the pandemic

AN IDC INFOBRIEF
Source: IDC’s Cloud Pulse 3Q20, n = 450 Sponsored by: 4
THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
 Increased cloud adoption benefits map directly onto top
enterprise IT priorities
IDC surveys of Asia/Pacific enterprises show a direct correlation between cloud adoption’s benefits and top
enterprise IT priorities, as shown below.

Top enterprise IT Top business benefits realised

priorities (2021-2022)1 from cloud adoption2

1. Improve business processes

1. Support business growth 59% 48%
and increase revenues

2. Control costs, optimise IT expenses 58% 44% 2. Reduced capex and IT costs

3. Improve customer experience 56% 44% 3. Deliver superior customer experience

4. Faster app modernisation and 4. Reduced app development

55% 42%
new application development cycles through access to innovative
emerging technology

AN IDC INFOBRIEF
Source: 1) IDC’s Cloud Pulse 3Q20, n = 450; 2) IDC’s Cloud Pulse 4Q20, n = 318 Sponsored by: 5
THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
The future is clearly multi and hybrid cloud
Cloud and cloud-centric operating Enterprises’ cloud Organisations say they
models are becoming an increasingly environment (2021-2022)1 don’t have a clear hybrid
important part of the enterprise IT cloud strategy because2:
landscape, making hybrid cloud all
but a certainty in our near future.

63% 59%
Multicloud with high/full
IDC estimates that interoperability Creating interoperability
almost 80% of in a multicloud
organisational IT
spending in the 26% environment is too
expensive
Asia/Pacific region
37%
Multicloud with little/some
today is 11% interoperability

80%
attributable to Single cloud
different cloud Creating interoperability in
environments (both a multicloud environment
private and public) Within the next couple of years, over 63% of is too technically complex
enterprises are expected to move to a hybrid
cloud model with either a high degree of or full
data and application interoperability

AN IDC INFOBRIEF
Source: 1) IDC’s Cloud Pulse 1Q21, n = 1150; 2) IDC’s Cloud Pulse 3Q20, n = 450 Sponsored by: 6
THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
Hybrid cloud adoption trends in Asia/Pacific: A deep dive
Over the next two years, how would you describe your organisation’s use of different on-premises
and off-premises cloud environments?

Cloud estates by geographical areas1, 2 Cloud estates by vertical1

GCR
Financial Telco & IT Wholesales/ Professional Public
Manufacturing
Greater China India Korea Japan Singapore Australia services services Retail services sector

Hybrid
76% 52% 61% 51% 58% 69% 66% 61% 61% 59% 60% 70%
Cloud

Not
24% 49% 39% 49% 42% 31% Hybrid 34% 39% 39% 41% 40% 30%
Cloud*

Additional geographies1, 2
China HK + TW NZ ASEAN (ex. SG) 63% of Asia/Pacific Among industry verticals, Public
enterprises will adopt a Sector entities and Financial
Hybrid Cloud 83% 62% 52% 59%
hybrid cloud infrastructure Services firms appear to have the
Not Hybrid Cloud 17% 38% 48% 41% model over the next 2 years strongest hybrid cloud ambitions

AN IDC INFOBRIEF
Source: 1) IDC’s Cloud Pulse 1Q21, n = 1150; 2) IDC’s Cloud Pulse 3Q20, n = 452 (Japan) Sponsored by: 7
THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE *Single or multicloud with limited interoperability
Hybrid cloud promises improved security, operations and
deployment
Hybrid clouds are effectively able to combine the benefits of public cloud and that of a private environment—regulatory requirements,
compliance and latency.

Q. Key reasons to use hybrid and private cloud environments2:

32% Improved
security 27% Ease of management /
Operations
To gain business agility, by 2024,
enterprises will have committed to
modernising over half of their
26% Application /
data portability 23% Ease of implementation /
Deployment existing applications, using turnkey
cloud-native development and
deployment services.1

18% Automation and

orchestration 18% Architectural
consistency

AN IDC INFOBRIEF Source: 1) IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Cloud 2021 Predictions — Asia/Pacific (Excluding
Sponsored by: 8
THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE Japan) Implications ; 2) IDC’s Cloud Pulse 3Q20, n = 450
Risk of fragmentation through disconnected cloud silos
As diverse public and private environments proliferate within an enterprise’s distributed IT estate, disconnected cloud silos could emerge
to threaten the vision of a seamless hybrid cloud.

Edge cloud Traditional IT Hyperscaler By 2022, all enterprises will be struggling with
IaaS cloud application modernisation and data
integration throughout cloud silos, and around
20% will have adopted well-connected cloud
strategies to overcome these concerns.
Dedicated Public PaaS
private cloud cloud

Keeping applications and infrastructure software up to Today's typical hybrid cloud is premised on a patchwork of disconnected cloud
date and correctly configured in such an environment is silos. Interconnectivity is achieved through a mix of cloud-specific APIs and
effort-intensive, time-consuming and error-prone. management tools. As such, this connectivity is custom-made and brittle.

AN IDC INFOBRIEF Source: IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Cloud 2021 Predictions — Asia/Pacific (Excluding
Sponsored by: 9
THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE Japan) Implications
Connected Cloud Architecture:
The Future of Digital Infrastructure
IDC’s Future of Digital Infrastructure research indicates that enterprises will increasingly leverage cloud-centric technologies, more
ubiquitous deployment options, and more automated IT operations as they embark on their hybrid cloud journey.

Ubiquitous The success of this Digital Infrastructure model relies heavily on the ability of
Deployment enterprises to migrate and integrate workloads and data running in different types
of cloud environments.

Such a distributed environment poses critical IT operational challenges, driving the

need for more sophisticated management services.

To make this vision a reality, enterprises need to implement consistent

Autonomous
automated management control planes across all cloud resources.
Operations
This will enable consistent application of policies, robust governance, and effective
Cloud-centric
Technology monitoring, analytics and automation for configuration, security, and compliance.

IDC terms this construct Connected Cloud Architecture.

AN IDC INFOBRIEF
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THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
Connecting the hybrid cloud estate with an open, cross-
cloud control plane
Control Plane
The driving principles behind a connected cloud architecture are:
Automation
• A common automated management control plane across all cloud
resources. This enables the application of consistent policies and Policy
governance across the entire distributed cloud estate.

• A consistent, open API-driven management layer to unify cross-

cloud operations. It also delivers consistent performance across all
connected clouds. Open APIs Inventory Role-based
and search access control
• A focus on the desired business outcomes by assuring the
necessary connectivity fabric irrespective of enterprises’ cloud
choices.
Templates Organise Configuration
compliance

Policy-driven automation, advanced

observability, and real-time Source control Automation and Cost
analytics help maintain service integrations orchestration
levels, security, and compliance.

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THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
Key benefits of a connected cloud architecture:
Underpinned by hyperautomation and security
What are the most important attributes currently What do you see as the major benefits of using a
driving your organisation's selection of digital shared cross-cloud management control plane to
infrastructure products and services1? integrate across multiple cloud environments2?

1. Improve 4. Reduce
change number of cloud

41.8% control and

compliance
(34%)
management
vendors (31%)
Consistent, unified visibility and
control across on-prem, public
cloud, hosted environments and
edge platforms (through a 2. Reduce 5. Easier to
connected cloud architecture) downtime/ use latest
human error innovations
(29%) (34%)

Enterprises clearly recognise the 3. More 6. Better

value of a connected cloud consistent integration with
architecture to their cloud security / risk DevOps
strategy. And the benefits of such management toolchains (33%)
an approach are numerous… (38%)

Hyper-automation and integrated security across the

distributed estate help realize all the above benefits

AN IDC INFOBRIEF Source: 1) IDC Future Enterprise Resilience Survey 4, May 2021, APJ n = 370);
Sponsored by: 12
THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE 2) IDC's Cloud Pulse,1Q21, n = 565
Hyperautomation within a distributed estate
The complexity of hybrid and multicloud environments makes As part of a common cloud architecture, the same automation policies, processes,
it almost impossible to effectively scale, manage and secure code and constructs can be leveraged across diverse environments that comprise
resources and applications manually. a hybrid cloud estate to deliver operational consistency, scalability and speed.

Enterprises embracing a cloud connected architecture benefit from increased automation within a distributed IT environment*.

Enterprises’ perceived benefits of a connected cloud architecture (cf. p12)

1 2 3 4 5 6

Automation outcomes of a hybrid cloud Improve change Reduce More consistent Reduce number of Easier to use Better integration
environment control and downtime / security / risk cloud management latest with DevOps
compliance human error management vendors innovations toolchains

Automated infrastructure provisioning

Automated configuration management

Automated application deployment

Complex environment orchestration

Security automation

*The numbers in the table indicate to what degree, on a scale of 1 to 5, a hybrid environment addresses enterprises’ desired benefits from a connected cloud architecture.

AN IDC INFOBRIEF
Sponsored by: 13
THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
Greater security and trust
“Security concerns” are the top inhibitor in enterprises’ adoption of public cloud A connected cloud architecture enables a more trusted
services, as per the IDC Cloud Pulse Survey 3Q 2020. In fact, survey data suggests and secure hybrid cloud environment by providing a
that 52% of respondents preferred private environments when security common framework for technical and administrative
was a key consideration, over 31% who preferred the public cloud. controls to secure the distributed environment.

Connected cloud architecture engenders greater security and trust through the following methods*.

Enterprises’ perceived benefits of a connected cloud architecture (cf. p12)

1 2 3 4 5 6

Ways that a connected cloud architecture Improve change Reduce More consistent Reduce number of Easier to use Better integration
creates a more secure environment control and downtime / security / risk cloud management latest with DevOps
compliance human error management vendors innovations toolchains

Automated environment monitoring,

compliance checking, baselining and patching

Standardised, automated and repeatable

deployment of cloud environments

Seamless interconnectivity over a distributed IT

environment for backups and redundancies

A common container platform for secure

application design, well-configured
deployments and protected runtimes

*The numbers in the table indicate to what degree, on a scale of 1 to 5, a hybrid environment addresses enterprises’ desired benefits from a connected cloud architecture.

AN IDC INFOBRIEF
Sponsored by: 14
THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
Essential guidance
IDC believes that hybrid cloud represents the future of enterprise digital infrastructure. The ability of enterprises to seamlessly consume cloud resources and
capabilities across diverse environments in a reliable, standardised and automated manner will be key to maximising the value that can be realised from this future
state. IDC has the following recommendations for enterprises that are looking to embark on their hybrid cloud journey:

Envision Establish Evaluate Evolve

Envision your hybrid cloud Establish and prioritise across a Evaluate options for cross-cloud Hybrid cloud is not an end-state, but a
future as defined by your comprehensive set of business, management control planes against continuous evolution. Demonstrate your
organisational context, digital operational and technical objectives the criteria previously identified and digital dexterity by embracing change and
aspirations and market trends. that will guide your hybrid cloud journey. prioritised. adopting new cloud constructs.

Key considerations: Key considerations: Key considerations: Key considerations:

Future innovation model Innovation vision and goals Partners and ecosystem Community and ecosystem
strengthening

Desired IT capabilities Business and financial metrics Architecture and standards Platform innovation and enhancement

Governance architecture Operational parameters and SLAs Platforms, tools and services Quality and maintainability

AN IDC INFOBRIEF
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THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
Message from the sponsor

Driving Connected Cloud Architecture with Red Hat and Microsoft

Red Hat and Microsoft give you more choice and flexibility for your hybrid cloud
deployments, delivering enterprise operating systems, simplified container
technologies, rigorous security, management and integrated support.

636%
By unifying disparate IT environments, hybrid cloud technologies can help you
achieve greater business agility, efficiency, and competitive advantage. Even so,
implementing a hybrid infrastructure strategy can take time. Choosing and
return on investment integrating the right combination of technologies is critical.
over 5 years for Red Azure Red Hat OpenShift is a great example of the combined innovation of
Hat OpenShift* enterprise Kubernetes with the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux, running on the scale and power of Microsoft Azure. To simplify
multicloud environments, Red Hat & Microsoft offer a common automated
management control plane for a connected cloud architecture; this includes
Azure Arc and Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management.
Lufthansa Technik
Customer Together, these technologies provide advanced automation and observability to
stories VINCI Energies easily manage and orchestrate cloud-native workloads across a hybrid cloud
environment that focuses on delivering value for the business.

Wherever you are in your cloud journey, Red Hat and Microsoft can help you
achieve your company’s digital infrastructure strategy.
To speak with us about your connected cloud
strategy, email apac-ccsp@redhat.com

* Source: IDC White Paper, sponsored by Red Hat, "The Business Value of Red Hat OpenShift", doc #US47539121, February 2021.
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IDC Doc # AP241257IB