What got the hybrid IT stone rolling?
“IT isn’t quite as young as we sometimes like to think. Technology has come a long way, and in that way it’s no different from other industries. But advances in back-end IT have received a lot more attention in recent years, also at Bechtle. When I first started here five years ago, we spent maybe 15% of our time on back end-related projects. Today, the split between back end and front end is much more balanced and in line with market realities. Companies spend an average of about 55% of their IT budget on the front end, and 45% on the back end. Our focus is closing in on that ratio, too. This is because we’re winning more and more customers who have us build their entire IT infrastructure from scratch. And one of the most significant developments in this area is the cloud.”
So, is everything going to end up in the cloud now?
“I like to distinguish between a true cloud strategy, and a cloud marketing strategy. Naturally, cloud providers want everything to be up in the sky. But that’s not always ideal or even doable. The devil’s in the details and the best way to go for a company isn’t always that straightforward. An all-cloud strategy may be the right choice under the right circumstances. But at Bechtle we often find that a hybrid cloud and on-premise approach is the most beneficial for our customers. We’re their trusted IT partner in a hybrid world for a reason.
Why should customers choose to go hybrid?
“It’s the best of both worlds. For instance, why would you provide resources in your own data centre, when they are only used a few times a year? They eat up a big chunk of your budget for administration and maintenance of infrastructure that you barely need. On the other hand, there are companies that want to offload it all into the cloud, but they misjudge the feasibility of such an endeavour, and the impact on their business. That’s why we tailor solutions for our customers that really fit. They take different things into account, such as the number of users, the specific workloads, and whether our customer has many off-the-rack applications deployed. Many of these can indeed be sourced from the cloud. If, on the other hand, we’re talking about production facilities, sensitive data or customised applications, then maybe less than 10% of it all can realistically go into the cloud.”
Gijs van der Putten
Joost van Lochem
