The use of cloud computing has been a reality for Telefónica for some time now, especially in Brazil. Four years ago, we began our journey towards adopting the cloud, and since then we have been experimenting and learning about the benefits this technology offers on a daily basis.
After maturing and consolidating our use of the public cloud with platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud, we recently began building a more robust approach: the implementation of a hybrid cloud structure.
What is the hybrid cloud?
According to Gartner, ‘hybrid cloud computing involves one or more public and private clouds operating as separate entities, but integrated at the data, process, management or security layers. It is important to note that, by definition, a hybrid cloud requires the existence of a private cloud infrastructure.’
It also predicts that 90% of companies will adopt a hybrid cloud approach by 2027. In other words, the growth of this type of strategy is becoming increasingly relevant for organisations seeking flexibility, scalability and cost optimisation.
How do we structure this model in Brazil?
Although the public cloud has provided us with numerous benefits in recent years, we have identified certain specific scenarios in which local infrastructure continues to play an essential role. For example, environments that require low latency, high availability, regulatory compliance, and greater financial control over workloads are cases where keeping part of the operation on-premises makes clear strategic sense.
Therefore, our current strategy is based on adopting Azure Local as a solution to enable the use of computing resources in a distributed and hybrid manner. With Azure Local, we are able to integrate the best of both worlds: the flexibility of the public cloud and the control of local infrastructure. This approach allows us to maintain a unified management layer and ensure a consistent experience across the entire environment.
The basis of our hybrid integration
Azure Local has brought a hyperconverged architecture platform to our data centre that combines computing, networking and storage in a single integrated solution. This structure ensures high performance, continuous availability and optimisation of local resources, while remaining connected to the Azure ecosystem. Complementing this solution, Azure Arc allows us to manage and monitor local and cloud resources from a single administrative panel, through the Azure console. This unification simplifies operational management, reduces complexity and ensures regulatory compliance and total visibility of the infrastructure.
Currently, our focus is on using workloads in the IaaS model within Azure Local. In the near future, we plan to expand this structure with the implementation of services such as Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD).
Conclusions
The adoption of Azure Local represents a new focus in our digital transformation journey, raising the level of maturity in cloud adoption in Brazil.
By combining the scalability of the public cloud with the robustness of local infrastructure, we have built a technological ecosystem ready to face the challenges of the present and take advantage of the opportunities of the future, always aligned with our purpose of digitising to bring people closer together.
