Year Of The Hybrid Cloud

What looked a few short years ago like a looming and inevitable winner-take-all deathmatch between public and private cloud has come to a surprisingly amicable armistice.

The market has spoken, telling warring vendors on both sides of the public-private divide that enterprises envision hybrid environments for years to come.

"We're seeing this reinforcement from enterprises that there's a lot of value having flexibility long term. And that's not just one or two public clouds, but also running things efficiently in your data center," said Brian Kelly, CEO of CloudBolt, a hybrid cloud management startup.

Having heard that message loud and clear, name-brand cloud providers have taken to partnering and innovating at a rapid clip, racing to bring to market comprehensive, manageable, extensible and secure hybrid solutions.

"Some of these companies' willingness to work together just a few short years ago didn't seem to be possible," Kelly said.

As public clouds look to extend their reach into the corporate data center, and on-premises vendors connect to hyper-scale powerhouses, the ultra-competitive hybrid market will only heat up in 2019. How those alliances and battles play out will shape the future landscape of the IT industry for years to come.