Moving workloads from on-premises to cloud or from one public cloud computing environment to another can potentially expose organizations to data loss or mismanagement, as well as unexpected downtime.

As a provider of workload automation for hybrid cloud, Turbonomic Inc. provides a way for companies to experiment with how to move and optimize their cloud environments in real-time. For example, they can take the workloads a company is running with VMware on-prem, then show what would happen if those same workloads were run on Amazon Web Services or Azure. This way, the organization can have confidence that their workloads will behave as planned.

“For us, by abstracting the work from the underlying infrastructure, that gives the customers the flexibility and the simplicity to understand and de-risk any migration projects that they have,” said Tom Murphy (pictured), chief marketing officer of Turbonomic.

Murphy spoke with John Walls (@JohnWalls21), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and guest host Justin Warren (@jpwarren), chief analyst at PivotNine Pty Ltd., during AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas. They discussed how they assist clients in their move to the cloud, as well as thoughts around containers. (* Disclosure below.)

Scalability and flexibility, all while reducing complexity

For Turbonomic clients, there’s a balance between not just how the workloads are allocated, but also by how they are consumed in the cloud. There has to be optimum performance at an optimum cost, according to Murphy. Initially, the company’s clients have a data assessment, including an inspection of their on-prem workloads. And those workloads will be right sized, Murphy added. Models and plans are then run, looking at the workloads that are being picked up and moved to the cloud and determining what will be needed once they’re in the cloud. This is just the beginning of the journey, as what takes over is continual optimization.

“The continual optimization means … making sure that the demand of the workloads is matched with the underlying supply at all times, for the benefit of performance, for cost, and also making sure we’re compliant with business policies at all times,” Murphy explained.

The transition to cloud in the enterprise is in full force, according to Murphy. About three years ago, companies were thinking about cloud; last year, they were testing out cloud; and this year, they’re live in the cloud, he pointed out. So what’s next? Next year is going to be all about containers, as there is a move into cloud-native applications, he added.

“Containers and microservices [are] steamrolling … we hear that [from] all of our customers now,” Murphy concluded.

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

Photo: SiliconANGLE