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Hybrid IT For Dummies, HPE Special Edition 52 These materials are © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. workloads with an infrastructure that makes financial sense for that application. You can blend on‐premises security and performance with cloud agility and economics, so you can scale up to support changing business needs. The point is that hybrid IT enables more flexibility than is possible with either on‐premises IT or cloud alone. Maintaining Hybrid Control Perhaps the biggest challenge in considering cloud is the perception of loss of control. When you have infrastructure sitting next to your desk, you feel more in control. When you move to the cloud, there is a palpable loss of control because you can't just walk up to a server and do something to it anymore. You're working within the confines established by someone else. Avoiding cloud lock‐in There's also a larger, overarching issue with cloud, and that's around lock‐in. For decades, lock‐in has been something to be avoided. IT doesn't want to feel trapped by a solution that could leave the department unable to react if a need changes or if a company goes out of business, changes its cost struc- ture, or some other event transpires that's outside the cus- tomer's control. With on‐premises infrastructure, at least, you still have your data tucked safely away on your local storage. Cloud can take lock‐in to whole new levels, particularly with the cost that can be incurred getting out if you decide to exit for some reason. You may decide that the provider isn't doing a good job, or you may decide that the workload is better suited elsewhere, or the cloud provider may simply shut down. You shouldn't necessarily take this to an extreme, but you should consider a multi‐cloud strategy that involves two or more providers. That way, if one provider fails, you can shift those workloads to another provider rather than back to your data center, where you may be delayed by the need to buy more hardware.