Colleagues came to me with two very recent blog and posts with this title “The Data Center is Dead” to which I am willing to add another question: “So is the Private Cloud?”

When you drill down the writing and try to surface its essence, the perspective seems to come down to:

• Strong increase of complexity on all IT streams (Network, Clouds, Servers or Workstations Multi-OS management, etc)
• The presentation of a dreamy solution with clouds (especially public ones (to contrast with hybrid, private or community ones)) where IT would be ubiquitous like electricity is!
• This added complexity means an urgent need of many more very vertical and specialized skills. Resources needs and costs go therefore -up and up and up- far more quickly than what an organization can usually afford
• Nothing new on this: look at the service rather than looking at the servers. Start from the top of the stack rather from the infrastructure perspective. This is done since long… but thanks for the reminder!

The clouds mindset is like: “Consume the service from anywhere, anytime” (and don’t look at the cost, we anyway are cheaper as this activity is the center of our concern we can only be more competitive.). On that note, funny enough, now VMWare states it clearly (Private cloud can be up to 41% cheaper than Public ones) since it doesn’t have a commercial solution in this regard!.

The multiplicity of the source and therefore the surface to secure is becoming so large that no company can really secure the data end to end. See for example, the recent hacking of British Airways credit card customer details. Let me also remind you this provocative post.

The overall game is very much diverse if you are a new company or an older one (legacy). Size matter! Are you Small, Big? Are you local or global. There is no other choice than playing the game at those different layers. We all know that becoming simple is complex. And clouds gives this feeling of simplicity while it only either hide it, or transfer it to different layers at a larger scale.
Often, Hybrid cloud comes out as the sensible option. You can embark new approach, transform your traditional infrastructure into infrastructure as code and thus enjoy a real Private Cloud.
Hybrid cloud allows to manage:

1. The data nature. (Private? Data Value for the organization?, etc.)
2. Legal matters. Depending of the data type, what compliance is required (GDPR, Cloud Act, etc.)? This will help in choosing the data hosting location (First on clouds Private/Public and then geographically)
3. Private/Public Clouds functionalities needs (Elasticity, Cost, etc.)
4. The use of SaaS. When does it make sense? Not as a precipitation option
5. Of course, when it comes to re-invest in the Private Cloud heart infrastructure, you need to do your homework: what is in the current balance? Any inflexion point reached that might trigger to re-invent the infrastructure’s organisation?
6. Do the math: What data remains on the private cloud, what doesn’t, and make your case!

Combining Software defined Clouds and Software Defined WAN, you start to have a level of flexibility never enjoyed before!
Yes, the traditional “Data Center is Dead” and from its ash the Private Cloud was born… and will remain for still a while.