The Ultimate Guide to Hybrid Cloud Computing

Jan 15,2020 by Anushka Agarwal

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Technological advancements and innovations have evolved and transformed the cloud computing industry in recent years. Businesses around the world are looking forward to technologies that can manage tools across multiple environments, be it of the same format or different ones. The major driving forces for this computing arena are factors like, economics and speed. Following the new requirements, ‘hybrid cloud’ has turned to be the talk of the IT town.

Hybrid cloud is a recent inclusion to businesses, and the procedure had been muddled by various definitions. If you do not have a clear understanding of the spectacular benefits of cloud computing and how this newbie is going to revolutionize IT solutions, then don’t worry, we are here to help you out.

What is a Hybrid Cloud?

Although there is no one definition as to what hybrid cloud computing is, perhaps, the closest one is from the National Institutes for Standards in Technology (NIST):

‘Hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures, be it, private, public, or community, that remains in unique entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability.’

In layman’s language, a hybrid cloud is a mash-up of on-premises and off-premises IT resources. Furthermore, a hybrid cloud refers to a cloud environment that is an amalgamation of on-premises private cloud resources along with the third-party public cloud resources, intermingled with the same type of symphony.

Hybrid cloud aces the earlier versions of cloud computing, as it allows workloads and data to ride between private and public clouds, depending on the needs, demand, and costs, while ensuring greater flexibility. This allows businesses to deploy data in a hassle-free manner. Hybrid cloud management includes data management in the following environments:

at least one private and one public cloud
2 or more private clouds
2 or more public clouds
a virtual environment connected to at least one private or public cloud

How to Build a Hybrid Cloud?

Just like your fingerprint, every hybrid cloud created is unique. There is no one size or format for all the cloud architectures. Everything that makes your hybrid cloud one-of-its-kind depends on how you organize the cloud. But, there are a few basic principles that govern the architecture of a hybrid cloud environment. These are:

Traditional hybrid cloud architecture: Hybrid clouds are a result of connecting a private cloud to a public cloud. Private clouds can be built easily using a pre-packaged cloud infrastructure, however, for public clouds, you need to choose from the public cloud environment, namely, Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.You need to link the private cloud to a public cloud, using a complex network of LAN’s, WAN’s, API’s, and VPN’s. As for VPNs, many cloud service providers give their customers a pre-configured system as a part of the subscription package only. These include:

Google Cloud offers Dedicated Interconnect
AWS offers Direct Connect
Microsoft Azure offers ExpressRoute
OpenStack offers OpenStack Public Cloud Passport

Modern hybrid cloud architecture: Unlike the traditional cloud architectures, modern hybrid clouds do not require a vast network of APIs for movement or deployment of information from one cloud to another. Modern clouds run on the same OS in every IT environment and a singular unified platform. The apps and workloads are developed and deployed as a collection of small, independent, and loosely coupled objects. In a hybrid cloud, the same operating system usage solves the hardware requirements, while single platform management solves the app requirements. This results in a smooth computing environment for deploying apps from one place to another without worrying about the APIs that break every time apps are updated or the hybrid cloud providers are changed.

The Various Hybrid Cloud Architectures

Hybrid cloud solutions are perfect for businesses having more than one cloud environment (public, private, or multi-public), with simultaneous management of all these platforms. Hybrid cloud prevents duplication of efforts and potential security threats since the environments are not managed separately, but collectively.

The various ways of constructing a hybrid cloud include:

Hybrid cloud management software: Many start-ups and established cloud infrastructure management vendors offer hybrid cloud services for both on-premises and public cloud applications. The cloud management software’s engages businesses in specific tasks, like cost control, application performance monitoring, or allocation of the resources.
Vendor-native hybrid cloud: Following into the idea of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), cloud vendors can construct a hybrid cloud by extending the on-premises services to the public cloud or vice versa. This allows public IaaS providers, to build connections from the public clouds into the data centers of the customers.
Platform as a Service (PaaS): BPaaS sits on the top of the three fundamental cloud services, mainly, SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. PaaS is an application development platform that allows developers to write custom applications without assigning any infrastructure. Such software can run on customer’s premises, in an IaaS public cloud or a private hosting environment. PaaS automatically configures an infrastructure across these environments, making them a platform for the hybrid cloud.

In simpler terms, the architecture of a hybrid cloud includes the IaaS platform, which can be any public cloud providers, namely, AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. These can be stored on-premises or off-premises and require a WAN (Wide Area Network) to connect the public and private clouds.

Hybrid Cloud Benefits

Hybrid cloud infrastructure indeed, drives cost-saving, however, its main advantage is to assist in business transformation. This technology is agile enough and can easily adapt to changes depending on the enterprise’s needs and demands. Furthermore, hybrid cloud combines public clouds, private clouds, and on-premises resources to help businesses take the competitive advantage of managing data on the singular platform.

Big Benefits of Deploying Hybrid Cloud Technology:

Flexibility and Scalability: Hybrid clouds are very flexible when it comes to storing data. It allows you to store sensitive information on the private cloud, and data like backup and archives, on the public cloud. It is agile in its functioning which means, that the platform can support a sudden increase in the data storage.
Reduces Costs: As your business grows, the needs and demands for private cloud storage also increase. Hybrid cloud allows you to keep all the sensitive data on the private cloud, with a relatively cheap public cloud storage space. A hybrid cloud is expensive than a public cloud but it is cheaper than a private cloud; while letting you reap the benefits of both the infrastructures.

Is the Hybrid Cloud Right for Your Business?

Hybrid cloud has made it easy for enterprises to tackle issues with data storage and security. Some of the frequently used data can be stored on the public cloud. But, not everything belongs over there. That is why companies are relying more on keeping data scattered on both public and private cloud, with storing confidential information on the company’s on-premise server.

Hybrid clouds allow applications and components to move in between boundaries, premises, and architectures. This flexible approach is what answers the plea of modern IT businesses. No matter, if you are working on datasets or workloads, it is very important that you plan the movement or deployment of apps in response to the evolving needs.

With time, your company may have a diverse client base with variable security, regulatory, and processing requirements. Such demands require the agility and flexibility of a hybrid cloud, which can only be fulfilled by hybrid cloud solution providers.

Cloud Deployment Models: A Comparison

Conclusion

In a hybrid cloud, the data can be intermixed between on-site and public cloud but is kept within a single workload only. In simple words, any solution that allows an organization to respond to the IT demands flexibly is a good investment. Several top hybrid cloud providers can solve all issues related to agility or scalability of data workloads and help enterprises to stay ahead of the competition.