Companies face a serious challenge when deciding on what type of data infrastructure to adopt. How to store huge amounts of data whose security is of paramount importance to the company? Should you trust the convenience of the public cloud or should you retain full control with a private cloud? Relying on one solution, although seemingly less complicated, carries specific risks. Perhaps the best solution in your situation is hybrid cloud infrastructure.
Private, public and hybrid cloud
Investing in building your own private cloud gives you much more freedom, but it does not guarantee success. Any mistake in a custom cloud environment can seriously damage or even ruin the company’s budget and image.
However, relying solely on a public service requires high trust in the provider’s infrastructure. Hybrid cloud is a combination of the advantages of both solutions. If it is implemented in a thoughtful way, it also allows you to avoid their disadvantages.
What is a hybrid cloud?
Hybrid cloud solutions combine on-premises data centers and public cloud environments. The hybrid cloud approach consists of both local and global solutions provided by other companies.
According to Flexera, a vast majority of companies (72% as of 2023) use hybrid cloud platforms and the percentage is poised to grow further.
Why choose hybrid cloud solutions?
Companies may choose to maintain part of their infrastructure on premise due to regulatory restrictions. They may also want to keep critical systems in a private cloud where resources are clearly delineated and secure.
The may want to employ cloud services to host applications and perform demanding computational processes. They may also be seeking flexibility and scalability that private clouds cannot guarantee.
Hybrid cloud adoption allows companies to harness the power of the public cloud, while maintaining critical systems separate. There are no two identical hybrid clouds, because each organization can freely arrange data depending on the workloads it forecasts.
Advantages of the hybrid cloud infrastructure
As with any technology, there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution, simply because companies differ in the scope of their business and their data storage and processing needs. Let’s first focus on what makes hybrid cloud environments attractive.
Security
Hybrid allows you to use the highest possible computing power and keep data under control. You can use the private cloud to deploy applications in production while simultaneously developing and testing applications in the public cloud.
If data storage is well planned, you can ensure full efficiency even in demanding processes and 100% protection of key information.
Scalability
Many organizations experience periods of increased demand: a sudden spike in the number of application users or customers visiting an online store. With a hybrid cloud you can quickly take steps that will allow us to fully exploit the potential of the new situation.
Using a hybrid cloud computing model, you can quickly move applications and data between private and public zones. This way you will provide appropriate space and dynamics for processes that will bring the most profits to the company at every stage of development.
Recovery
A private cloud is a great place to back up data from a public cloud – and vice versa. It is an excellent preventive measure against the disastrous effects of errors and random phenomena. Backup enables data recovery in the event of an unexpected failure in local computing environments.
In fact, even companies using mostly private cloud or an on-premises data center, still use a public cloud for data backups.
Flexibility
The combination of local solutions and the public cloud in the pay-per-use model supports business continuity regardless of the situation. Emergency transfer of processes to a second location is easier than with a private cloud solution.
Research shows that 56 percent of organizations believe that a hybrid cloud model effectively protects the organization against unexpected business disruptions.
Disadvantages of the hybrid cloud
Responsibility
Although manufacturers strive to secure their environments, the responsibility for security in a hybrid cloud ultimately falls on who bears the greatest risk – the entrepreneur. The hybrid cloud model requires the end user of the service to be more vigilant in detecting security vulnerabilities between the two types of clouds.
It is also necessary to standardize user authentication processes and reasonable division of access to local and public data.
Data transfer
There is a risk of encountering low network data flow when moving files between private and public clouds. The transfer to the public cloud takes place over the Internet, so it is partly dependent on the company’s Internet service provider. It is worth taking comprehensive care of the data transfer speed before introducing a hybrid cloud.
Hybrid cloud resource management
It is more difficult to control the optimization of public cloud use in a hybrid cloud implementation. The private cloud has limited capacity, but in the public cloud we only pay for the space we use.
On the one hand, this situation allows you to effectively save on wasted space, but on the other, it involves risks. Poorly selected storage options and carelessly leaving processes active in the cloud that are not needed generate unnecessary costs.
Maintaining regulatory compliance
Failure to closely monitor performance can also jeopardise the compliance of corporate operations as data moves between internal and external systems, and organizations often have confidence that their public supplier is compliant with current regulations.
Overcoming cloud challenges
Best practices to overcome the challenges of a hybrid cloud model include:
- Cloud data encryption.
- Keeping your data safe rather than leaving this responsibility to your cloud service provider.
- Create and document policies regarding the suitability of each cloud type for specific applications, data, and workloads. Taking into account performance, legal requirements and whether a given function is critical to the company’s mission, you will be able to optimize your cloud environment.
- Automation, for example with predictive autoscaling solutions.
- Contacting an cloud expert or hiring a cloud architect to help with efficient implementation.
- Choosing a public provider that offers direct connection to its systems from local infrastructure.
Read also:
Frequently asked questions about hybrid cloud infrastructure
Is hybrid cloud the same as multicloud?
No. A hybrid cloud infrastructure is when a company uses both private and public cloud solutions. It could use public cloud resources from only one of the many public cloud providers, e.g. Google Cloud.
The multicloud approach implies using public cloud services of many cloud providers, e.g. Amazon’s AWS, Microfot’s Azure and Google’s GCP.
What is hybrid cloud architecture designed to do?
A hybrid cloud is designed to minimize the complexity of managing many public and private clouds, as well as edge resources. In this infrastructure, the workloads and data stored in your on-premises data centers, private and public cloud resources remain tied together. They are distinct, but they can communicate more easily than when using a separate set of tools for each distinct cloud platform.
Is running apps on-premises better than in the public cloud?
Yes and no. In case of latency-sensitive apps it may indeed make sense to keep the apps on private cloud. This type of cloud architecture optimizes the performance of your apps by placing the sensitive applications in a private cloud for proximity to end-users. Meanwhile, less sensitive workloads can be stored on the global infrastructure of public cloud providers, ensuring enhanced user experience.
Is hybrid the best solution for me?
A hybrid solution may be best for your business if you’re debating between public and private cloud. It allows you to secure all important company data with the Private Cloud service on local servers – access to sensitive data remains strictly controlled via a combination of SaaS and DBaaS services. It also ensures that all the most important processes take place in a scalable cloud from an external provider.
The hybrid provides the advantages of both technologies: constant internet access to company applications and full security of key data – with the ability to move files between these environments.
A modern enterprise does not have to choose between the utility of the public sector and the security of the private sector. In many cases, creating a hybrid cloud that combines the advantages of both improves the functioning of most modern companies.
