September 9, 2023 | By Ryan Felkel
Hybrid cloud takes the capabilities of the public and various private cloud options and merges them, allowing businesses to host different workloads within different environments depending on their performance, security, and resource needs. Companies leveraging a hybrid cloud strategy promote business competitiveness and agility, allowing them to respond to changes in resource demands quickly.
Before discussing hybrid cloud strategies in more detail, let’s first go through the advantages public and private cloud environments provide businesses to better understand the power of a hybrid mixture of cloud environments.
Read more: Harnessing the Benefits of Hybrid Cloud Computing
Advantages of Public Cloud
Public cloud environments are cloud infrastructures owned by third-party cloud service providers but shared across multiple organizations. This setup is popular for software development, test environments, and other innovative processes since companies can quickly scale resources as needed.
Cost Savings
Public cloud environments are cheaper to use than private clouds since companies pay for the service, not the hardware or upgrades.
High Agility
The public cloud is designed with the flexibility to adjust to sudden workload demands quickly, and can be installed within a few hours.
Server Redundancy
Public cloud infrastructures often hit the five nines of availability since providers manage several interconnected servers and data centers. This means when one server is down, the others can take its place to prevent interrupted workflows.
Advantages of Private Cloud
With managed private cloud, companies receive an environment that their own organization solely uses. A private cloud is an effective option for companies adhering to strict data compliance regulations since the dedicated infrastructure is designed for security.
The other popular private cloud solution is virtual private cloud (VPC), which functions like a private cloud environment running on public infrastructure that is isolated to the one customer.
Both private cloud options offer companies:
High security
Businesses leveraging the private cloud receive higher levels of privacy compared to public cloud environments, which multiple companies share. With VPC, connections stay between the customer and the provider without crossing the Internet, adding another layer of security.
Flexible Configuration
Companies using the private cloud can easily customize their environment to meet unique business needs. A VPC provider is able to easily integrate their solution into existing infrastructures and cloud services, effectively making it an easily adaptable hybrid cloud.
Efficient Performance
With greater control over the dedicated environment, internal IT teams can monitor the infrastructure to prepare for and prevent downtime, enabling more consistent performance. With VPC, the provider can upgrade the infrastructure consistently, with no interruptions for the end users.
Why is Hybrid Cloud Ideal For Many Businesses?
Hybrid cloud allows companies to choose which features they want from any type of cloud environment for each workload, combining both private and public solutions. For example, businesses leveraging a hybrid cloud strategy can use private environments for their highly-sensitive internal projects and use public cloud resources to address unexpected network bandwidth demands.
The hybrid cloud is a great option for businesses looking for cost-effective, highly scalable, and secure workspace environments.
Cost Effective
Organizations handling sensitive data can run their IT workloads in the private cloud while using the less expensive public cloud for day-to-day workloads or less sensitive activities. If a company needs more cloud resources, they can pay for what they need instead of investing in more permanent infrastructure upgrades.
Improved Control
A hybrid cloud setup allows businesses to have full control over their private cloud environment, choosing what a third-party provider handles and which are managed internally. When companies experience a sudden surge in processing demand, they can quickly ramp up or down computing resources as needed.
Flexible Environments for Every Workload
Since hybrid cloud consists of leveraging multiple cloud platforms, companies can tweak their environment depending on their unique infrastructure needs. Businesses can host certain workloads in highly secure private cloud environments and conduct testing and development processes in the public cloud.
Companies with remote workers also benefit from hybrid cloud since it allows employees to have access to data whenever they need it and wherever they are since the platform isn’t held in just one place. For example, a company can house essential data on their on-premise, private servers while hosting applications and services via the public cloud environment.
Easy Scalability
Businesses looking to develop new applications can leverage the public cloud portion of the hybrid cloud to easily ramp up their processes without creating security vulnerabilities. Many providers offer the ability to automate cloud settings to respond to performance needs, enabling seamless scaling.
Minimized Downtime
On the disaster recovery side, hybrid cloud helps companies promote uptime and minimize disruptions from disasters by replicating mission-critical data to the cloud. When businesses experience sudden spikes in demand the environment can easily adjust without overloading the private servers, promoting uptime.
Interested in leveraging a hybrid cloud strategy or want to learn more? Reach out to our team to discuss your cloud environment needs and how our managed hybrid cloud solutions enable better performance, security, and scalability.