While industry pundits continue to debate the merits of public versus private clouds, most business technology decision-makers are trying to determine the best way to manage a mixed environment. But it's proving difficult for a number of reasons.

Most mid-size and large organizations have never gained full control over their on-premises IT operations and business applications. For many IT groups, legacy network and systems management software has been far too complicated and costly, much like ERP systems, which most businesses still haven't been able to implement fully.

The way in which companies adopt cloud services and the various ways in which cloud service providers support their offerings compound the IT department’s challenges. The consumerization of IT lets business units and end users acquire software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service and even infrastructure-as-a-service alternatives without IT's help or approval. This end-run can strain networks, trigger security alerts and create additional integration requirements, putting another layer of complexity on top of the existing data center chaos.

[ Considering a hybrid environment? Read 4 Keys To Hybrid Cloud Planning. ]

As a result, these IT organizations are seeking a new generation of management tools to help them monitor their existing on-premises systems along with their new cloud services. They’d like these tools to provide an end-to-end view of their IT operations -- both internal resources and external services.

Ideally, they'd like tools that not only give them real-time data and issue alerts when a problem occurs, but also provide analytics that can anticipate problems before they disrupt their operations.

Fortunately, a new generation of cloud-based IT management products are attempting to address these issues. Just like their SaaS business application counterparts, these new IT management products are easier to deploy and less costly to operate than conventional systems. They can be configured to fit into a variety of IT environments and can quickly generate information that gives IT organizations valuable insight into their operations.

The My Cloud Connect workshop on April 2, from 9 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., will examine these exciting new hybrid cloud management tools and discuss the techniques that are quickly becoming industry best practices.

Jeff Kaplan is the managing director of THINKstrategies, founder of the Cloud Computing Showplace and host of the Cloud Innovators Summit conference series.. He can be reached at jkaplan@thinkstrategies.com.

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