While hybrid cloud computing across heterogeneous environments is largely still a dream for most IT organizations, the arrival of namesake software from Velostrata is promising to make it much simpler to move application workloads from VMware environments into the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.
Velostrata CEO Issy Ben-Shaul says Velostrata enables the creation of a truly hybrid cloud by decoupling compute from storage. By deploying a virtual appliance in both an on-premise IT environment and in AWS, an IT organization can now move workloads bi-directionally between them. Any change in one environment is automatically reflected in the other, says Ben-Shaul.
It is designed to provide a management console that plugs into VMware vCenter, through which VMware administrators can then opt to have a virtual machine deployed on premise or spun up on AWS. The Velostrata software then manages the streaming, caching and data fetching required to keep the hybrid cloud computing synchronized across a wide area network (WAN).
Ben-Shaul says the ultimate goal is to blur the line between private and public clouds in a way that makes them natural extensions of each other. The result is an IT environment that allows IT administrators to make rational deployment decisions based on the nature and characteristics of the workload versus a mandate to deploy every workload in one place or another.
The degree to which hybrid cloud computing will be embraced by IT organizations is naturally going to vary widely. But as cloud computing continues to evolve, the distinction between where one cloud begins and another ends is going to be increasingly difficult to determine.
