A hybrid cloud is a computing environment that combines two or more distinct types of cloud services, typically a public cloud and a private cloud, into a single, integrated infrastructure. The integration between the public and private cloud environments is a critical component of a hybrid cloud.
This layer ensures coherent communication between the two parts of the infrastructure. It can involve technologies like virtual private networks (VPNs), dedicated connections, or application programming interfaces (APIs).
Organisations choose to adopt hybrid cloud platforms to reduce costs, minimise risk, and extend their existing capabilities to support digital transformation efforts. With a hybrid cloud, you can store your data and run your applications across multiple environments.
Hybrid clouds are especially useful for dynamic or highly variable workloads.
Hybrid Cloud Examples
The hybrid cloud approach offers flexibility, scalability, and the ability to maintain certain data and services on-premises while utilising the public cloud for other resources. With their own implementations, here are some examples of hybrid cloud:
- AWS Outposts, Azure Stack
- Azure Arc
- Microsoft Azure VMware Solution
- Google Anthos
- Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
- Nutanix Cloud Clusters
- VMware Cloud Foundation
- VMware Cloud on AWS
How Does Hybrid Cloud Work?
A hybrid cloud integrates two or more distinct computing environments: a private cloud (typically located within an organisation’s data centre) and a public cloud (provided by cloud service providers like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud). Furthermore, hybrid cloud architectures require:
- Connectivity: Robust network connections, like VPNs or direct links, are established to enable secure communication between the private and public cloud environments.
- Data and Application Mobility: Data and applications can move seamlessly between the private and public clouds based on performance, cost, or other criteria.
- Resource Orchestration: It means the coordination and management of various resources, services, applications, and data across a combination of on-premises infrastructure and multiple cloud environments.
Adopting a Hybrid Cloud Model
When considering the adoption of a hybrid cloud model for your organisation, make sure to follow these steps for a successful transition.
Planning and Preparation for Migration to the Cloud
It involves assessing your organisation’s current IT infrastructure, identifying workloads suitable for the cloud, and creating a comprehensive migration strategy. This phase also considers data security, compliance requirements, and business continuity measures.
Evaluating Different Cloud Service Providers
Selecting the right managed cloud service providers can be a critical decision. For this, evaluate the offerings, pricing structures, performance, and compliance capabilities of various Cloud Service Providers.
Choose those that align best with your organisation’s goals and the specific needs of your workloads. Consider factors like data residency, support and services and how you manage your IT processes more efficiently.
Choosing the Right Hybrid Model for Your Organisation
A hybrid cloud approach is ideal to attain the scalability and security offered by a public cloud like Google Cloud.
Hybrid cloud adoption can be an ideal move for large industries. It can significantly enhance your organisation’s IT capabilities.
Hybrid clouds often reduce long-term expenses, creating more financial flexibility within an organisation’s budget. Hence, a hybrid cloud is simpler and more cost-effective, so the company can realise savings as it grows.
Let Matrix Solutions help you find the ideal cloud infrastructure for your organisation.
Benefits of Hybrid Cloud Solutions
Businesses adopting hybrid cloud solutions offer more benefits with a flexible and strategic approach to IT management. Here are some key benefits:
Data Processing
A hybrid cloud lets a company use strong public cloud services to analyse data stored in their place occasionally.
Security
When you use a hybrid cloud, you get the security benefits of a private cloud and a public cloud’s capabilities. You might store your important data safely in a private cloud. At the same time, the public cloud is also necessary to transfer it for tasks like running applications and analysing data. This way, you get the best of both worlds: security and power.
Faster Innovation
Hybrid cloud models allow you to access technologies like AI and machine learning without expanding or replacing your current infrastructure. This means you can make the most of your resources and boost productivity, which leads to the faster development and delivery of apps.
Dynamic Workloads
A hybrid cloud is helpful when you have work that constantly changes, like a system for taking orders, especially during busy seasons when many people are ordering things.
Improved ROI
A hybrid cloud comes with both private and public clouds. Adding a public cloud provider to your existing on-premises infrastructure allows you to expand your cloud computing capacity without increasing your data centre expenses.
The hybrid cloud uses private and public clouds, employing more operations at a time. It may lead you to several challenges as well.
Challenges of Hybrid Cloud
Increased Complexity
As companies use more public and private cloud services, their IT setups get more complicated. It becomes more challenging to manage and keep everything secure. Therefore, monitoring these services is essential to see what’s happening in their IT environment.
Knowledge and Skills Gap
Adopting a hybrid cloud requires skilled IT staff and cybersecurity experts. So, finding people who understand cybersecurity and the cloud can be another challenge for any company. This knowledge gap can be risky for companies, so they need to take care of it previously.
Network Dependance
A hybrid cloud relies heavily on WAN (Wide Area Network) internet access. This means it needs a strong and reliable WAN connection with enough bandwidth and low latency. If there are any network problems or outages, the hybrid cloud won’t work.
Private Cloud Maintenance
The part of a hybrid cloud, private cloud, needs a lot of money, attention, and know-how to keep running. Adding extra software, like databases and help desk systems, can make it even more complex.
Hybrid Cloud vs. Multi-Cloud
Both the clouds refer to cloud deployments that combine more than one cloud. The difference is the cloud infrastructure they include.
Multi-Cloud means computing services from more than one public cloud vendor for different workloads. The hybrid cloud uses multiple computing environments to deploy common workloads.
A hybrid cloud combines the private and public infrastructure and services for a unified purpose. All the components work together, enabling processes and data from different tasks (and teams) to intersect in a large, unified project. But in a multi-cloud, each cloud serves a different need and enables various tasks. It offers a separate cloud for each team or usage.
FAQs About Hybrid Cloud
What is the difference between full cloud and hybrid cloud?
The difference is that the full cloud is entirely based in a cloud environment, while the hybrid cloud combines cloud and on-premises infrastructure.
Why does Netflix use hybrid cloud?
Netflix uses AWS for almost everything cloud computing. AWS allows them to balance cost-efficiency, scalability, and content delivery speed for users.
What are the two types of hybrid cloud?
AWS Outposts and Azure Stack are the two types of hybrid cloud platforms.
Is hybrid cloud better than private cloud?
For a single organisation, it is obvious that the private cloud works well. But for large companies with more workloads, a hybrid cloud will offer you more benefits as it combines multiple clouds.
What is the difference between private, public and hybrid cloud?
The private cloud is exclusive and controlled by one organisation, the public cloud is shared and provided by a third party, while the hybrid cloud combines both for flexibility.
