The enterprise cloud is a model for IT infrastructure and platform services that provides all of the benefits of public cloud services for enterprise applications without compromising on the value delivered by private datacentre environments.

Six key components of the enterprise cloud are:

  • Unified governance models are the policy-centric instantiations of the single control plane.
  • Full-stack infrastructure and platform services deliver turnkey infrastructure for any app at any scale in any place.
  • Zero-click operations and machine intelligence deliver operational simplicity through automation and insights.
  • Rapid elastic consumption allows businesses to buy and use only the IT resources they need, and scale when demands grow.
  • Integrated security and governance covers the entire infrastructure stack across private and public clouds.
  • Application-centric mobility lets businesses place and move applications anywhere, with no infrastructure lock-in.

But how can the enterprise cloud meet the needs of businesses wanting to switch between private and public easily?

Making the case for enterprise cloud

Many businesses want to use the public cloud for fractional consumption as well as pay-as-you-grow economics, infrastructure and platform resources on demand, no local infrastructure operational overheads, along with delegated infrastructure security, governance and risk management.

At the same time, they also want balance between owning and renting, especially as workload characteristics change, proximity of data and services, tailored SLAs for specific applications, and the flexibility to choose their preferred platform.

This is where the enterprise cloud comes in, which offers control over many applications with the added bonus of frictionless agility and ease of use.

Essentially, enterprise IT can:

Deliver greater simplicity for multi-cloud governance thanks to an open approach that places value on flexibility and optionality􏰳

Empower end-users with self-service of on-premises and public resources.

Automate deployment and management of applications across multiple environments without compromising on governance and control.

Unify governance across all cloud environments and teams for optimal resource utilisation and compliance.

Final thoughts on the enterprise cloud

Even though enterprise IT teams long for flexibility and elasticity, traditional third-party cloud environments don’t integrate with on-premises infrastructure. This is often in spite of massive amounts of IT services and third-party products bringing together disparate enterprise and public cloud technologies.

The enterprise cloud can be seen as a native and integrated approach, which builds on a common cloud operating system to deliver a true extension of the datacentre environment. Cloud-based services can be invoked and implemented on demand via one click from a single management pane, which also features the ability to provision and deploy applications across multiple clouds.