Cloud service providers have spent years and countless marketing dollars trying to lure businesses to their public clouds. Those same providers now want to turn that around and deliver the cloud to their customers.
The largest cloud players have recently added new types of cloud services and products that enable users to more seamlessly establish and manage a hybrid environment. The idea is to provide a common software stack that will smooth out the bumps between a data center that's under the full control of that organization's IT staff and the cloud resources run by a service provider. Microsoft, Oracle, AWS and others offer tools -- and, in some cases, actual appliances -- for customers to install in their data centers.
This handbook explores these new types of cloud services and how they might help an organization better mix its cloud and on-premises environments. Tech writer Alan Earls talked with cloud analysts to see how they assess the pros and cons of putting cloud technology in a company data center. Other articles included look at specific changes Google and AWS have made to their product portfolios to emphasize that they no longer are resistant to the hybrid model.
