Multicloud options continue to accelerate across the enterprise, as 81 percent of enterprises currently have a multi-cloud strategy, according to RightScale’s “2018 State of the Cloud Report.” But multicloud is a complex issue underlying the current trend for digital transformations, from storage considerations to security permissions. How are industry stalwarts like IBM approaching this complex, new world?

“From an IBM perspective, at the top level we approached it with innovative technology and a lot of industry expertise,” said Jeff Eckard (pictured), vice president of storage solutions at IBM Corp. “Cloud and what we do with the public IBM cloud is really important around the services we provide.”

Eckard spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Cisco Live event in Orlando, Florida. They discussed IBM’s approach to multi-cloud solutions. (* Disclosure below.)

Data management and multicloud

Thus, multicloud comes into play as companies learn how to manage, analyze and store the game-changing data behind digital transformations.  “Multicloud is the de-facto operating model for applications and then, therefore, for the data,” Eckard said.

To this end, real-time insights are key to enabling better decision-making processes to support business goals and curb security threats. The challenge is bringing analysis tools to the data, in whichever cloud it resides.  “[It’s about] being able to deliver personalized services to your clients and then also improving your internal processes and business outcomes,” he said.

IBM sees a lot of companies focused on modernizing applications or workloads, which leads to building new modern infrastructures to leverage data storage and protection. These infrastructures must incorporate cloud. IBM has just recently started offering a private cloud (IBM Private Cloud) option along with its public cloud, supporting the best of both cloud worlds.

“There’s a whole set of tools in [IBM Private Cloud],” Eckard said. “What we’re trying to do from a data management perspective is protect it, whether that’s backup and recovery, morphing into this new category of secondary data reuse.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Cisco Live event. (*Disclosure: IBM sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither IBM nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE