The adoption of hybrid cloud has increased in the manufacturing sector. In 2019, it is 19%, which is noticeably higher than the adoption figures in other industries as per the report published by Nutanix. The firm predicts that by 2021, this adoption would increase to 45%. Thus, it is clear; the hybrid cloud is one of the modern technologies that are being singled out for powering the evolution of Industry 4.0.
A while back, Industry 4.0 was restricted. Despite the desires of many manufacturers to up the ante and innovate with business transformation, there was a hurdle. This obstacle was the presence of legacy IT systems that were not letting AI, IoT, and ML to maximize and unlock the true potential of Industry 4.0. One of the opportunities that manufacturers have for breaking these shackles is to migrate to the hybrid cloud. The report mentions that around 91% of surveyed manufacturers picked the hybrid cloud as the most effective IT model.
The Solution to Data Sovereignty
Nowadays, due to the emergence of consumers around the world, the concept of data sovereignty has attracted a great deal of attention. It means that digital information is subject to the rules and regulations of the country from where it is collected and stored. Cloud providers are having difficulties in linking up solutions to their manufacturers due to this reason.
Experts reckon that within the next two years, organizations would take data sovereignty seriously and change their data management policies and strategies. In places like Europe, the implementation of GDPR has tightened the noose for many businesses and has introduced quite strict data sovereignty regulations on how data should be stored and what requirements must they fulfill.
At this crucial juncture, the hybrid cloud has been credited as a useful tool that can address data sovereignty issues. With the hybrid cloud, businesses can have their on-premises and private work IT infrastructure, from which they can reap the fruits of the cloud, particularly its blazing speed and performance.
Manufacturers can decide what they must “keep” on-premises as per the regulations and what they can off-load to the off-premises.
Integration with Edge
All the resources that manufacturers have poured into the cloud can be at risk when access to the cloud is broken, and it affects the business negatively. Consequently, they may have to contend with change management and productivity issues. As operators must switch quickly between analog and digital infrastructures for sustaining the operations of an organization, they may become disillusioned with the complete digital transformation.
Therefore, a hybrid cloud-edge plan can serve as a reliable solution. The addition of the edge to the hybrid cloud makes sure that mission-critical tasks are not compromised. In this way, manufacturers can leverage the hybrid cloud on-premises instead of relying on the cloud. Hence such a strategy empowers manufacturers to attain maximum generation with the lowest possible risks.