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Most organisations are already operating a hybrid IT estate in one form or another, and according to the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), this trend will continue for the foreseeable future.

This mix of on-premise, hosted and cloud services, along with the proliferation of mobile solutions, collaboration and devices, means that the future challenge confronting IT managers is how to build an effective hybrid IT estate while meeting the operational and governance needs of the organisation.

Andy Burton of the CIF states: "Hybrid IT is hardly a new phenomenon as it relates to the co-existence of multiple IT deployment models, which has been true for most business since the move away from mainframes in the 1980's. However, most causes of a hybrid environment have been the product of a transition process rather than an explicit strategy. Arguably this is no longer the case today, and to further test the extent to which on-premise will continue to co-exist alongside cloud-based services, we asked participants that already use cloud services if they would ever consider moving their entire IT estate to the cloud. The results were quite enlightening in that almost 50 per cent of firms could eventually see themselves one day being wholly based in the cloud (12% as soon as possible, 17% based on IT refresh cycles and the balance when they perceived the cloud was able to accommodate all of their business IT needs). The remaining 50% cannot see a day when they will be entirely based in the cloud, but only 4% had no expectation of ever using a cloud service."

Matt Eckersall, UK Director of Hosting, Microsoft, comments: "We know that for today's CIOs and business leaders, the cloud presents an opportunity to redefine the role that the IT and non-IT business functions play in implementing a business strategy. Because of its power to fundamentally change how businesses operate and compete, the cloud is a game changer for many companies. As we focus on people, we know that no business service you create today lives on an island. You need apps, communication, and collaboration to connect together in an agile way. To achieve this, we believe you need a comprehensive cloud - from platform, to productivity, to business solutions. It doesn't make business sense to make a one-off software decision in today's world. So the hybrid way really will remain the practical deployment model for the foreseeable future."

Nick East, CEO of Zynstra, a provider of hybrid cloud solutions for SMEs, stated: "The combination of on-premise and cloud services is nothing short of a marriage made in heaven for the SME. Hybrid IT is the perfect solution for this market. Today it is possible to provide SMEs with world-class IT capabilities in a way that allows them to pay as the benefits are realised, not when the solution is first deployed. Arguably enterprise-class IT at an SME cost. SMEs face the same challenges as they look to migrate to the cloud as any other organisation, including concerns over data sovereignty, data privacy and control. In addition, they are often concerned about limited access to Internet bandwidth. For these reasons, we have no doubt that SMEs will naturally gravitate towards a hybrid model that lets them use applications and store data at the point that works best for them."

Gilles Samoun, Chairman and CEO of Abiquo, a cloud management platform provider, added: "IT has always had to deal with the compromise between designing the perfect infrastructure for each IT solution, and standardising to gain economies of scale and deliver a consistent set of services. Moving to a hybrid model of cloud services deals with the scale issues for hardware, but introduces new challenges in maintaining consistency of service provision and support. Increasingly we will see companies look beyond just viewing cloud as an alternate infrastructure, and examine how a multi-provider cloud world can be integrated to their inventories, monitoring and support systems, and processes. The hybrid, multi-provider cloud model will play a big part in this transition, giving businesses more choice and flexibility. As a consequence, rather than "move to the cloud" we see companies making the cloud an extension of their own tried and tested environments." Ch