Game-Changing Shift: The Hybrid Enterprise

Cloud and agility

Disruptive Tech

Survey respondents ranked the hybrid enterprise as the third most disruptive tech trend they’ve faced over the past 30 years. No. 1 is mobility followed by the Internet.

Complex Computing

66% of survey respondents said they are involved with all three network models—VPNs running over public networks, public networks and multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) networks.

VPN Wins the Popularity Vote

The most popular network model is a VPN running over public networks, according to 91% of survey respondents, followed by public networks (87%) and MPLS networks (75%).

Mixed Deployments

59% are involved with all five app deployment models—public cloud, SaaS, on-premise virtual, on-premise cloud and on-premise physical servers.

Public Cloud Tops Interest

91% of survey respondents said they are at least discussing deploying apps to the public cloud. Other models include SaaS (89%), on-premise virtual (85%), on-premise private cloud (81%) and on-premise physical servers (77%).

Demand Drivers

The biggest reason enterprises are moving toward the hybrid enterprise is to increase application performance, according to 79% of survey respondents, followed by cost reduction (78%) and faster agility (75%).

Serving the Customer

Two-thirds of survey respondents agreed that serving the customer was a top reason for making the move to a hybrid enterprise. Enabling their companies to do business physically closer to their customers and working the way customers preferred are two top reasons for making the switch.

Luck of the Draw

48% of respondents said they didn’t select a hybrid enterprise; it’s just how their environment evolved.

Implementation Challenges

Reliability and availability concerns were tied as the top challenges for IT, according to 84% of respondents, followed by performance (83%), security (80%), IT agility (80%) and end-user experience (77%).

Coping Mechanisms

Enterprises can deal with their top challenges by addressing optimization, control and visibility, according to Riverbed. Latency and bandwidth are no longer constraints with optimization of application traffic, business-intent policies provide intelligent control over application performance across hybrid public and private networks, and tools are needed to gain visibility across all applications for faster troubleshooting and better end-user experience.