When you are working with data, you should be able to make sense of what benefits your business. Whether you are dealing with the clients’ data, company-level internal information or anything in between such as applications, storage and security; dealing with these knowledge mines plays a vital role.
One such approach is the Cloud and its various styles of implementations, which we discussed earlier in our previous blog. In today’s post, we will shed some light on ‘Hybrid Cloud’, which is gaining popularity and is a mid-way between public and private clouds.
What is Hybrid Cloud?
As mentioned earlier, it is a mashup of public and private cloud infrastructures. Let’s understand more in detail about all the versions of the cloud.
Private Cloud
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Running on-premise or off-premise, this cloud space is dedicated to one party (or organization) to lend extreme security. All the applications, servers and data storage are on the cloud meant for this single entity. In a virtualized system, the assets are located over the internet and within the company premises, in case of an on-premise private cloud.
When off-premise, the cloud is still dedicated and highly secured but is located away from the company premises.
Being a dedicated network, the accessibility is fast and secured, yet via an expensive setup.
Public Cloud
Public cloud runs on a shared system where all the servers, data storage systems, and applications are shared among multiple entities (companies or individuals) with an intent to bring the cost of the infrastructure to marginally low numbers compared to the private cloud. Since the setup is shared, it is bound to be bigger in infrastructure and slower. This also makes the system vulnerable to exposure. However, the vendor handling the public cloud is fully responsible for the security, round-the-clock functioning and setup.
Scalability is easily achievable at a cheaper cost as compared to a private cloud.
Hybrid Cloud
When the world of technology saw the shortcomings of the public and private clouds, Hybrid Cloud came into reality as an amalgamation of the best of the two spheres bridging the gaps and leading IT towards higher operational agility and flexibility.
With a hybrid cloud, move your on-premise infra to a public cloud to get your stakeholders and third parties outside the organization access to the applications and data. At the same time, protect your crucial data behind a firewall through a private cloud.
Putting it through a simple example, assume that the IT setup of a retail company is 40% completely on-premise cloud system, and the rest 60% is on the public cloud. In that case, the company would be able to share its data and applications with a third party or stakeholders from outside the company like customers and suppliers using the public cloud.
The private cloud will serve the purpose of retaining sensitive data over 40% of the infrastructure. When the need arises to expand the private cloud due to growth, the archival process can move the older unyielding data and applications over the public cloud without causing any susceptibility to the security.
Examples of Hybrid Cloud
The IT sphere has no dearth of cloud vendors like the big-ticket companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, etc., while many SMBs are also operating in this niche and are carving out their positions.
IBM offers IBM Cloud Paks, which they refer to as a hybrid multi-cloud platform and consider it the future of the cloud. The solution offers flexibility and data portability. Similarly, Microsoft offers hybrid cloud under Azure with hard-to-break security management. Look how Airbus considered Azure Stack as the only good solution.
What are the Benefits of Hybrid Cloud?
A jump of 7% to reach 58% in hybrid cloud usage from 2018 to 2019 by the enterprises is a clear testimonial of the advantages of hybrid cloud over other cloud ecosystems.
How is Hybrid Cloud Useful to the Enterprises?
Flexibility and Scalability
Being a mix of public and private cloud, enterprises can archive data from private to the public sphere and make more space in the private cloud for threat-prone applications. Also, the hybrid system allows easy expansion into the public cloud due to new ventures. Setting up a new infrastructure altogether or scale the existing servers to accommodate more applications is a demanding endeavor, which can be easily handled by a cloud vendor in less time.
Cost-Effectiveness
With many resources shared by other enterprises, costing doesn’t come as a shock to companies. At a fixed monthly fee or pay-as-you-go plans, you can save a lot of your budget over infrastructure, especially for a short-term demand spike that may not exist after a few months. Pay only for the resources the company is using, free up the dormant resources or use them in new ventures.
Quick and Hassle-free Setup
As mentioned above, since the shared cloud is managed by vendors who have ready systems to accommodate requests swiftly, you save a major chunk of time in asset management. The vendor’s responsibilities allow you to remain focused on the deliveries while the hassles of setup and maintenance rest on them.
Load Balancing
With Cloud Bursting, you can throw the overflowing applications or data from private to public cloud and keep the private system limited to threat-prone e-assets. Once the private cloud crosses its full capacity, the traffic is diverted to public cloud without any disruption.
Before You Opt for a Hybrid Cloud
For meeting your cloud strategy successfully, don’t consider moving to a hybrid cloud as a ‘lift and shift’ or incremental tactic. Nowadays, cloud management is shifting towards a vendor-agnostic approach where you can change the vendor based on your needs with minimal or no impact on the IT set-up. So, you should consider having:
Modernized Applications
To exploit the full potential of a hybrid cloud system, the applications need to be modernized with the capability to adapt platform variations with low resistance. They should be able to transact data between private and public clouds swiftly. For the exchange of data and extract actionable insights, you need:
The Right Approach to Data Analytics
Since traditional reporting and BI have moved towards predictive and preventive analytics with a push from modern tools integrating AI too, you should leverage the available tools which are cloud and platform-independent. Also, to secure your data in a hybrid setup, you should consider:
Secured Cloud
Easier said than implemented, hybrid cloud with modern technologies to support a secure ecosystem is the perfect solution to keep your data and applications checked against malicious attacks and threats. The private cloud offers a great deal of satisfaction in this segment but the shared part needs vigilance.
Conclusion
Whether you are in a niche industry—retail, sales, manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences, financial—or an SMB starting up or scaling to new heights, hybrid cloud is the right approach to fit your IT landscape with the new-age technologies and cost-effective servers.
We, at Logesys, cater to clients from diversified industries and set up or migrate their IT systems over the cloud using Microsoft Azure. With a history of our long-term partnership with the global software giant, you can be sure of cost-effective and error-free solutions.
Contact us for your Hybrid Cloud Assemblage Needs