Three Factors for Managing Your Data in the Hybrid Cloud

Data Requires a Different Strategy

Imagine if your data could be seamlessly and securely integrated across every part of your hybrid IT environment—for its entire lifecycle. Imagine being able to see, manage, protect, and move your data as easily as spinning up a VM.

This isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the promise of a data fabric strategy.

A data fabric abstracts and unifies your data across environments, enabling centralized visibility and control. It’s a foundational architecture that treats data as a first-class citizen in the cloud era. And there are three essential pillars to consider when building it:

1. Data Management

Data management is quickly becoming one of the most complex challenges in modern IT. It’s not just about storage—it’s about visibility, governance, and lifecycle orchestration. A robust data fabric empowers you with end-to-end monitoring and intelligent data orchestration. It gives you insight into where your data lives, how it’s being used, and how it can be optimized across your hybrid cloud.

2. Data Mobility

True agility demands that data be as mobile as the applications it powers. Yet most legacy storage systems are built to move data only within their own domains. Once your data crosses into the cloud—or from one cloud to another—it often becomes fragmented, constrained, or outright stranded.

A well-architected data fabric solves this by decoupling data from infrastructure, allowing for seamless movement and replication across disparate environments—public cloud, private cloud, edge, and on-premises. This not only improves operational efficiency but also enables cost optimization, disaster recovery, and real-time analytics at scale.

3. Data Services

Data without services is just storage. The real value lies in how that data is processed, classified, and leveraged. Data services within a data fabric provide capabilities like tiering, deduplication, compliance enforcement, and analytical insights—across all your data, not just the pieces living in your primary data center.

Disparate architectures and protocols can create data silos, but a unified fabric breaks down those barriers, exposing meaningful insights to the right applications at the right time. This is where data becomes a strategic advantage.

The Long-Term Vision

Moving forward, data can no longer just piggyback on compute strategies. It needs a strategy of its own—one that reflects its value and complexity. A data fabric offers a path to that future: a unified, agile, and intelligent data layer that spans the entire hybrid cloud.

The organizations that get this right won’t just improve IT efficiency—they’ll unlock faster innovation, stronger compliance, and greater resiliency.

Because in the end, your business isn’t built on infrastructure—it’s built on information. And it’s time to start treating it that way.