In Azure Is the Future of Microsoft, Paul outlines what we've all surmised for a long while without getting a true and accurate statement from Microsoft. Being a long-time System Center guy, myself, I've been privy to Microsoft's cloudy direction, knowing full well that Microsoft envisions a day where IT and IT services are provided as a utility, much like the electric company.
In a just released whitepaper, Microsoft sort of confirms Paul's commentary.
One of the leading paragraphs to the paper states:
…However, transition to the cloud is not going to happen overnight. Most organizations still have a lot of IT assets running in on-premises datacenters. These will eventually be migrated to the cloud, but a shift to the next paradigm always takes time…At the moment, for most organizations, we are in the middle of a transition between running everything on-premises and hosting everything in the cloud.
And, while the whitepaper is targeted toward realizing a Hybrid solution using Microsoft's technologies, Microsoft is assuming everyone is on board – or they will be soon.
At 110 pages, the whitepaper is a tough read, but there's some really good stuff in it, making it worthwhile to hit the section titles to find what interests you the most. The whitepaper lays out, not only Microsoft's strategy, but also the full spectrum of technologies Microsoft is producing to help with the transition to the public cloud. It also introduces some technologies you may not have even heard of yet, but will be released and communicated very soon, and puts forth a new term: hybridization.
In truth, for now, Microsoft is giving you the best of both worlds, allowing you to choose what is right for your business. Microsoft is one of the only vendors able to provide a true hybrid solution while the world continues to prepare to relinquish control over all that is IT.
Grab the paper here: Enabling Hybrid Cloud Today with Microsoft Technologies whitepaper
