How can CIOs harness speed and AI in the race for hybrid and multi-cloud deployments across Asia Pacific?

KUALA LUMPUR – Global research group IDC has predicted that at least 65% of Asia Pacific’s gross domestic product will be digitalised next year. Looking further ahead, the same group forecasts that revenues generated by 30% of the region’s 2000 most valuable companies will be derived from shared data, applications and operations initiatives within the next four years. In facilitating these developments, the region will see a further increase in hybrid and multi-cloud deployments.

To this end, how can Chief Information Officers harness speed and AI to accelerate their enterprise journeys toward the cloud?

Matthew Swinbourne, Chief Technology Officer, Cloud Architecture, Asia Pacific, NetApp, highlights two key considerations for a hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure, and role of strategic partnerships for CIOs in the region.

The speed of data throughput

Liken to a data gravity metaphor, as the ‘data planet’ gets bigger, it is bound to consume more services and applications into its ‘orbit’. To be able to shift that data, a ‘larger’ and ‘more comprehensive’ rocket is required. In a multi-cloud infrastructure, having a universal data fabric is regarded as the ideal ‘rocket’ that enables transportation between service providers, public clouds and data centres.

With Malaysia’s public cloud utilisation growing at a compounded annual rate of 15.25% – and expected to reach USD986 million by 2023 – more organisations realise that the need for an ideal data fabric will be more pressing than ever, which will be key to a hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure.

AI Ops for an intelligent data infrastructure

Embedding automation technologies in a data fabric has immense benefits for an enterprise that aspires to unleash the full power of artificial intelligence for IT operations.

An adaptive infrastructure that is machine-driven and well-managed by policies can significantly accelerate time-to-market. Such an infrastructure will empower organisations to nimbly allocate computing resources on-demand, for only the needed duration needed, thus freeing up valuable bandwidth for its own employees to focus on higher-value, purposeful work, such as policy formulation and executing on strategy.

AI Ops also ensure consistency across infrastructures, without consuming additional storage. Organisations will gain the ability to maximise its utilisation and availability of containers – thus optimising cost, capacity and bandwidth of enterprises.

Partnership with NetApp

Beyond technological advances, strategic partnerships remain a key determinant in any enterprise’s accelerating cloud journey. The more complex the deployment, the more significant one’s choice of strategic partners in-market.

In Malaysia for instance, NetApp is partnering with AVM Cloud to elevate the major components of AVM Cloud’s infrastructure and offerings. Cloud Service Providers like AVM provide services in-country, meeting the requirements for sovereign data retention by law or preference.

NetApp has been recognised for being the leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage in October 2021 for successive years. In 2021, the company was also recognised as a top vendor solution provider, as evaluated in the Gartner Critical Capabilities for Primary Storage across all use cases.

On the other hand, AVM Cloud is reputed for its ability to help enterprises in Malaysia analyse trends and get ahead of technological developments in the region. These include IO-as-a-Service, Big Data-as-a-Service, data protection, high availability-as a service.

In bringing together the strengths of NetApp and AVM Cloud, more enterprises will stand to benefit from the personalised services and data sovereignty of AVM Cloud’s three data centres located within Malaysia.

As the industry shifts rapidly from operating storages to managing data effectively and efficiently, enterprise CIOs in Malaysia and the region need to navigate an increasingly complex landscape, where speed, automation, and partners remain the bedrock of any successful hybrid and multi-cloud deployments.

Listen to Matthew’s perspectives on these 3 success factors, via this full podcast here.