Cloud Repatriation

What is Cloud Repatriation and why is it important?

Introduction

Cloud repatriation is the process of migrating applications, data, or workloads from a public cloud provider (like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud) back to on-premises infrastructure (private cloud).

Currently, there is a big movement towards the adoption of Artificial Intelligence. 

Companies migrated to public cloud as a move to reduce costs. This is true for the short term and to hit the ground running quickly.

However, when organisations start to grow further and remain within the public cloud space longer, it is evident that it becomes very costly very quickly.

Furthermore, with the adoption of artificial intelligence and the requirements of high performance computing, public cloud becomes very inefficient from a cost perspective, and this is when on-premise infrastructure (Private Cloud’s) shine.

Reasons for Cloud Repatriation

• Cost Optimisation:

  • Organisations may find that cloud costs (especially storage costs) can be reduced by moving data to on-premises infrastructure.
    
    

• Improved Performance:

  • Certain workloads perform better on-premises due to lower latency or direct access to hardware such as AI workloads, LLMs etc.
    
    

• Enhanced Security and Compliance:

  • Moving data back to on-premises or private clouds can provide more control over data security and compliance with regulations.
    
    

• Data Sovereignty:

  • Some industries or regulations require data to be stored within specific geographic locations, which can be achieved by repatriating data.
    
    

• Control and Flexibility:

  • Repatriation can give organisations more control over their infrastructure and data, allowing them to adapt to changing needs more easily. 

Private Cloud with the perks of public cloud

Is there such a thing? Yes, there is.

Broadcom’s flagship product, VCF (VMware Cloud Foundation) is designed to combine the quick deployment and scalability of a public cloud with the security, performance and control of a private cloud. It provides a consistent cloud experience across various environments, including on-premises data centers and public clouds.

Private Cloud Performance:

VCF enables organisations to create and manage their own private cloud infrastructure, which offers greater control over resources and can lead to higher performance and lower latency compared to public cloud environments.

Public Cloud Agility:

VCF's architecture allows for rapid scaling and deployment of resources, similar to the agility of public cloud environments. It offers self-service catalogs and automated provisioning, allowing for faster application deployments and infrastructure modernisation.

Unified Cloud Experience:

VCF provides a consistent management plane and interface, making it easier to manage and operate across different environments, including on-premises, private, and public clouds.

Enhanced Security and Control:

VCF offers built-in security features, including encryption, identity management, and advanced threat detection, ensuring a more secure environment for sensitive applications and data.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity:

VCF can be extended to public cloud environments for disaster recovery and business continuity, allowing organisations to replicate workloads and data to geographically dispersed locations for enhanced resilience. 

Artificial Intelligence adoption

VCF provides an optimised environment specifically for AI workloads making it the optimal solution to run LLMs, RAG workloads and anything that requires AI, both from a performance and cost perspective.

Final Thoughts

Private cloud and public cloud both have pros and cons. If the end goal is long term growth and running high performance workloads, you can leverage private cloud to enhance security, reliability and significantly reduce total costs. Furthermore, testing and dev environments are more cost efficient on a private cloud.

Another big factor to consider is that GPUs are not readily available across all regions in public cloud, therefore, some data may need to be stored in countries that are less desired.