Providers continue to push hybrid cloud technologies in 2018

The hybrid cloud market changes rapidly, as major cloud providers release new services to bridge private and public platforms, but for now, management challenges remain. Traditionally, when an enterprise planned a hybrid cloud deployment, it typically chose either OpenStack or VMware as the foundation for its private cloud and then paired it with the public cloud provider of its choice. However, this required IT teams to learn and manage at least two distinct cloud platforms. Fast forward to today, and the hybrid cloud picture has changed. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure and Google now see the financial opportunity around on-premises environments -- a shift that will result in several new, or revamped, hybrid cloud technologies in 2018. The first, and perhaps most elegant, hybrid cloud technology enterprises will pursue this year is Azure Stack. Microsoft has seen its strong foothold in the enterprise market translate into a preference for its Azure public cloud, especially given its integration with on-premises Windows Server clusters. Azure Stack takes that idea one step further, serving as the basis for an enterprise's in-house, private portion of a Microsoft-centric hybrid cloud.