Managing the economics of hybrid cloud: striking a balance to optimise operations

Communications service providers’ (CSPs’) cloud deployments are integral to shaping future network architecture, driving digital strategy, enhancing agility and redefining the operator’s role within new ecosystems. But achieving this transformation involves balancing cost considerations against performance and strategic decisions, including the complex issue of simultaneously collaborating and competing with hyperscale cloud providers.

Over the past two years, CSPs’ typical technology investment cycle has been characterized by periods of significant spending on new public cloud solutions, followed by retrenchment and repatriation of a percentage of the workloads. Then, they typically adjust their cloud strategies to create a more balanced approach that harnesses the benefits of both public and private cloud. The discussion in this report is framed within the topic of hybrid cloud because that is the preferred long-term architecture for most CSPs.