Hybrid Cloud: 7 Ways It's The Best Of Both Worlds
When choosing which flavor of cloud to go with for your organization, you'll find that a hybrid architecture has some distinct advantages over public and private cloud models. Here's a look at seven benefits of going hybrid.
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Despite all the discussion surrounding cloud computing these days, many IT leaders still struggle to comprehend the concept of hybrid cloud architectures -- and the inherent advantages they have over public or private clouds.
The primary reason for the confusion is that a hybrid cloud is not a technology, but more of a philosophy of use, when compared to public and private clouds. There are no hybrid cloud solutions per se. Instead, it's the way you manage and orchestrate public and private cloud resources that creates a hybrid cloud.
In a hybrid cloud architecture you leverage both public and private data center resources. Applications and data can reside in one or both cloud types.
The decision to use one cloud architecture over the other depends on many factors, including security, latency, redundancy, and required speed of implementation. The goal of a hybrid cloud is to make it so that end-users have no idea if an application or resource is in a public or private cloud. To them, it's all the same. Each application and data resource is carefully reviewed and a decision is made about where the resource will operate best.
In some cases the resource will work better in a private cloud, but in other cases the public cloud is a better match. The key here is that administrators have the ability to make those decisions.
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We're taking a look at the benefits that a hybrid cloud model holds over a model that uses either public or private cloud architectures alone. We'll cover topics like architecture freedom, resource utilization, cost of ownership, speed of deployment, and application requirements. As you read about the advantages of a hybrid model, try to apply each advantage to your own environment to see if a hybrid model could be beneficial to your organization. In most cases, it likely will.
We'd love to hear about your experiences with cloud architectures, and whether you like the freedom that a hybrid model offers -- or whether you prefer the simplicity of using only a public or private cloud design. Tell us all about it in the comments sectino below.
If I were to sum up in a single word why hybrid clouds have an advantage over public and private architectures, that word would be "options." While public clouds are great in many situations, they're not perfect for every situation. The same holds true for private clouds. If you had the ability to pick and choose where you placed enterprise resources, that would be great, right? That's precisely what hybrid clouds offer.
Depending on resources in the private cloud, and with whom you've partnered on the public cloud side, you have the ability to choose to deploy new applications and tools in either. If time is of the essence, one cloud model likely will be faster than the other. This gives IT a great amount of control over deployment when it comes to new IT projects that creep out of the woodwork unexpectedly.
If you maintain a private data center -- or have equipment hosted in colocation -- the idea of throwing it all away while moving to a strict public cloud model is oftentimes out of the question. With a hybrid cloud model you can still utilize your existing private infrastructure while exploring ways to leverage the public cloud. Over time, your IT admins will begin to work out what resources are better situated in-house vs. in the cloud.
The biggest sticking point regarding public cloud offerings is the assumption that storing applications and data in the cloud is not as secure as maintaining it within a secure enterprise perimeter. While this may or may not be a valid assumption, it does cause some IT decision makers to be apprehensive about public cloud adoption. If you're in this situation, a hybrid approach has advantages in that you can still store sensitive data and intellectual property within your internally managed private cloud, while allowing less-important applications and data to live in a public cloud setting.
One problem surrounding cloud applications hosted in public data centers is that there are limited ways to access that data. In most cases, the Internet is used, which is nearly impossible to regulate in terms of network latency. Many applications are latency sensitive (voice and video streams are tops on that list). Those apps are better suited to private environments where connectivity can be controlled using quality of service (QoS). With a hybrid architecture, that option is available.
Because you have the best of both cloud worlds -- public and private -- you can store critical applications and data inside of both to improve user access, increase redundancy, and reduce overall risk. If one portion of the cloud is down, you have the ability to fall back on the other part. Maintaining consistency between both clouds can get tricky, depending on the resource, but it certainly isn't impossible.
Another problem for many when it comes to public clouds is the concern that you lose visibility into lower-level infrastructure components. If you have applications that require visibility down to the server and network levels, then a hybrid model gives you the ability to shift those applications over to a private cloud.
In my opinion, it's foolish not to go with a hybrid cloud model in the enterprise. Having the ability to pick and choose public and private deployments allows for flexibility and cost savings far beyond what you would get going with only public or private clouds. While hybrid architectures can be a bit more challenging and expensive to manage and orchestrate, the overall benefits are well worth it.
In my opinion, it's foolish not to go with a hybrid cloud model in the enterprise. Having the ability to pick and choose public and private deployments allows for flexibility and cost savings far beyond what you would get going with only public or private clouds. While hybrid architectures can be a bit more challenging and expensive to manage and orchestrate, the overall benefits are well worth it.
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