Hidden amongst other raging trends such as edge, artificial intelligence and automation, the rise of vertical clouds seems like an obvious prediction to dominate in 2021.

But cloud adoption is complex. And as cloud becomes a business imperative rather than a nice-to-have, enterprises need help to make smart and strategic choices when it comes to cloud vendors and solutions.

Lock-ins are out, and multicloud and hybrid cloud are most definitely in. Offering the benefit of experienced partners plus robust, industry-specific security and compliance, vertical clouds — those focused on particular industries — are helping chief executives to calm the nerves of internal security and risk teams and create a cohesive cloud strategy rather than a chaotic one.

“Within the space of industries that are heavily regulated, there’s obviously a deeper need for sort of specific cloud embodiments and cloud implementation,” said Hillery Hunter (pictured), vice president and chief technology officer of IBM Cloud.

Hunter spoke with Paul Gillin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during theCUBE on Cloud event. They discussed how industry-specific clouds can help enterprises create clarity out of the current chaos of cloud strategy.

Hybrid is the only choice

When companies adopt cloud, the process doesn’t always follow a straight path from A to B to C. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to follow any path at all — what Hunter jokingly calls “random acts of cloud usage.”

Companies have adopted cloud because of a specific software-as-a-service function they wanted, or because one department was dead-set on a particular service on a specific cloud, according to Hunter. And adopting a hybrid stance can help connect those inconsistent deployments.

“Hybrid cloud is really about taking a step back, having a holistic architecture for cloud consumption,” she said.

Hybrid strategy can enable companies to consolidate across their information technology estate and cloud deployments, according to Hunter. That creates a common platform, helps developers deploy capabilities faster, more efficiently and with more security and compliance, and it gives companies the oversight that brings speed and drives value within the business.

“If cloud is everywhere, if cloud is distributed and can be on-premises and in public cloud, it enables this consistency and this parity really that sort of brings together that seamlessness, not just the random acts of cloud usage,” Hunter said.

Vertical clouds add practical dimension to hybrid

Vertical clouds add the benefits of industry specialization into the hybrid mix. Using IBM’s Cloud for Financial Services as an example, Hunter described how the platform is aimed at helping customers have “a holistic conversation across hybrid cloud and yet to still be able to choose particular cloud deployments … that enable data protection and policy for the most sensitive and enterprise-great things that they’re looking to do at the core of their business.”

First in line for vertical clouds was the finance industry, but regulation crosses all industries thanks to the adoption of data and subsequent privacy laws. So vertical clouds have been developed or are on the way for telecommunications, healthcare, energy and even retail. And it’s not going to stop there, according to Hunter.

“Everyone has an existing business — they have a platform they’re running, they have clients they’re trying to service,” she said, pointing to the global push for cloud adoption that the COVID pandemic has forced into high gear.

Everyone is stronger in an ecosystem

Orchestrating cloud-native and legacy companies, vendors and buyers, together to provide a stronger knowledge and tools base specific to their industry is the goal of a vertical cloud. That’s done by building a strong ecosystem of partnerships. For example, the IBM Cloud for Financial Services benefits not only from IBM’s experience and technologies for data privacy, data protection and security compliance, but from a global network of banks and more than 70 independent service vendors.

“The ecosystem conversation and the partnership conversation are two of the fundamental aspects of the program,” Hunter stated. With everyone working together, companies that are looking to undergo digital transformation can “leverage partners that are really at the forefront of that change in that innovation in platforms for the industry,” she said.

Delivering industry-specific vertical clouds is an important part of IBM’s cloud strategy, according to Hunter.

“We’ve partnered with key industries to deliver security and data protection and cryptography technologies and such on-premises, and we’re contextualizing that now for cloud and public cloud deployments,” she said. “It brings together the pieces of decades of expertise, and platforms, and technology, and regulations, and contextualizes it into cloud.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of theCUBE on Cloud event:

Photo: SiliconANGLE