Niall Gilmore, country manager, Citrix Ireland
The increasing availability of hybrid cloud will be a game-changing moment for enterprises next year, Citrix predicts.
While organisations currently engage with cloud computing through two different paths, the private cloud and the public cloud, this is all set to change.
“In the past, security-conscious companies would have used the private cloud model, keeping everything within their own data centres while organisations free from these limitations tapped into the more flexible option of the public cloud,” Citrix Ireland country manager Niall Gilmore explained.
“These single cloud offerings became well established in 2011, but next year we will see the proliferation of a ‘hybrid’ cloud model where businesses will begin to connect their private cloud with a public cloud, offering the benefits of both to their customers – the security of the private cloud and the flexibility of the public cloud.
“The widespread adoption of the hybrid cloud will be a game-changing moment, offering a new level of capability to companies in different sectors.
“Organisations will increasingly embrace complete control within their clouds over exactly where their data sits across their private and public cloud spaces. With this new level of control, companies can take advantage of all the benefits and resources open to them in the public cloud domain without compromising data integrity and security.
Explosion in ‘bring your own device’ programmes
Gilmore says that in addition to the explosion of the hybrid cloud, we will also see continued growth in the consumerisation of IT and the increased adoption of desktop virtualisation, both of which will push BYO programmes and work-shifting strategies within an organisation into widespread implementation.
“As a result of the increase in flexible work strategies and cloud computing, 2012 will also be a year of unprecedented demand for strengthening data protection and privacy. While legacy access control systems have previously failed to keep pace, desktop virtualisation provides organisations with the foundation to a layered security strategy so desktops, application and data can be delivered securely, on-demand to any device.
“One approach to information security based on desktop virtualisation, which we are expecting major growth in next year, is ‘secure by design’. This system includes centralising and securing entering data in the data centre, enabling secure access and collaboration for any worker by implementing granular access control policies, supporting any enterprise- or worker-owned device with secure delivery of desktop applications, comprehensive monitoring, activity logging and reporting to protect data.
“Overall, while 2011 was another tough economic year for Ireland, Irish business continues to innovate and explore new ways of doing business more economically and more efficiently. The technology industry here has seen a focus on developing tools to help pressed businesses to work faster, smarter and more powerfully as we all try to beat the economic downturn,” Gilmore concluded.
