Forbes believes it is an imperative for CIOs to view cloud computing as a critical element of their competitiveness. Cloud-based spending will reach 60% of all IT infrastructure and 60-70% of all software, services, and technology spending by 2020. In 2019, CIOs will have to optimize applications of the newest cloud technology in response to their requirements.
Forbes notes that a full transition to the cloud has proved more challenging than anticipated and many companies will use hybrid cloud solutions to transition to the cloud at their own pace and at a lower risk and cost. This will be a blend of private and public hyperscale clouds like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. CIOs will rely upon migration assessment and planning activities to identify an optimal allocation of workloads across public and private cloud environments. Private clouds are not simply existing data centers running virtualized, legacy workloads. They require highly modernized digital application and service environments running on true cloud platforms like Hitachi Enterprise Cloud. Hybrid clouds must bond together the two clouds through fundamental technology, which will enable the transfer of data and applications.
While public cloud vendors offer infrastructure as a service (IaaS,) which delivers compute, storage and network resources in a self-service, highly automated fashion and platform as a service (PaaS), such services do not completely eliminate the need for IT operations management. Customers still need expertise to choose the right service elements and to configure them appropriately, and they retain responsibility for the guest OS, middleware and applications that run on their IaaS compute instances. Public cloud also introduces new challenges in governance, financial management and integration.
Customers look to third parties for transitioning to public cloud, due to lack of expertise or staffing. Engagements may be on a short-term tactical basis or as part of a long-term managed service. As a result, an ecosystem of managed and professional service providers has developed to provide Managed Service Providers (MSP) for Public Cloud. This business has grown to the extent that Gartner has developed a Magic Quadrant for MSPs that offer managed services and professional services related to infrastructure and platform operations for one or more hyperscale integrated IaaS+PaaS providers. The term “hyperscale” is used by Gartner to refer to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
One of the vendors that has been on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure Managed Service Providers, Worldwide since its first release in March 2017, is REAN Cloud. As we recently announced, Hitachi Vantara has finalized the acquisition of REAN Cloud to directly complement the strength of our Hitachi Enterprise Cloud (HEC) and on-premises deployments. REAN Cloud is a global cloud systems integrator, managed services provider and solutions developer of cloud-native applications across big data, machine learning and emerging internet of things (IoT) spaces. Through this acquisition, Hitachi Vantara gains critical capabilities and industry-leading expertise in cloud migration and modernization, instantly elevating its cloud offering portfolio and managed services capabilities.
REAN Cloud has expertise working with the hyperscale public clouds. They are a Premier Consulting Partner in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN) and a Microsoft Azure Silver Partner. REAN Cloud offers managed services and solutions for hyperscale-integrated IaaS and PaaS providers and is one the few systems integrators capable of supporting the entire cloud services life cycle. Backed by extensive security DNA and deep compliance IP and expertise, REAN Cloud specializes in helping enterprise customers that operate in highly regulated environments – Financial Services, Healthcare/Life Sciences, Education and the Public Sector – accelerate their cloud investments while extracting maximum value from use of the cloud itself.
Last year REAN Cloud acquired 47Lining to provide deep capabilities in cloud-based analytics and machine learning that expands Hitachi Vantara’s ability to maximize data-driven value for vertical IoT solutions. This April, 47Lining, announced its Amazon Web Services (AWS) Industrial Time Series Data Connector Quick Start . The Connector Quick Start allows companies to quickly and easily synchronize their industrial time series data to AWS so they can perform advanced predictive and historic analytics using the full breadth of AWS big data and partner services.
The REAN Cloud team will be joining Hitachi Vantara’s Global Services organization, which is led by Bobby Soni, chief solutions and services officer. In July when we announced our intent to acquire REAN Cloud, Bobby posted this blog which gives his view on how REAN Cloud will be integrated into our roadmap to offer our ecosystem of partners and customers a secure and unified multi-cloud platform. What really excites Bobby about REAN Cloud is its people as we can see in this quote from his blog post:
“The REAN Cloud team is highly talented, passionate about cloud and big data engineering, and are clearly at the top of their fields. Data scientists, DevOps engineers, big data consultants, cloud architects, AppDev engineers, and many more – all of them smart and collaborative. We are all thrilled to welcome them to our own team of talented professionals. Together, we will continue to push the envelope by creating unique and insightful analytics and IoT solutions in collaboration with our partners and customers.”
Hitachi Vantara's cloud solutions offer unified cloud management for workloads across public, private and hybrid cloud environments. By combining REAN Cloud's expertise in public cloud and intelligent data governance with Hitachi Vantara’s robust global delivery ecosystem, Hitachi Vantara will now be better positioned to meet the growing infrastructure and analytics-based needs of its customers as they transition to the cloud.