Cloud computing not only makes your company more flexible and cost efficient, but it also improves scalability and performance. As a result, most of today’s businesses are choosing to adopt some form of cloud solution. While some pick a public or private platform, a growing number of small and medium-sized businesses are instead going with a hybrid cloud environment.
Hybrid Cloud Strategy: What You Need To Know
When we say hybrid cloud, we’re referring to a mixed computing setup that consists of an on-premises infrastructure, a public cloud, and a private cloud all working together. Each of these solutions alone have their advantages, but they also have their disadvantages. A hybrid cloud strategy helps you combine the best features of these solutions. To get a better understanding of this, let’s talk about private cloud vs public cloud.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of a Public Cloud
A public cloud is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) model where computing services are offered on-demand from a third-party provider. It’s called public because this platform is shared with multiple organizations. Some of the biggest names in the public cloud space include Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
Advantages
- Scalability: A public cloud allows you to freely scale resources according to the needs of your company.
- Storage: Related to its scalability, hybrid cloud storage is virtually unlimited.
- Reduced Costs: Since everything is stored in the cloud, there’s no need for your company to purchase or lease expensive data center equipment.
- Reliability: The services are stored in multiple data centers, so you don’t have to worry about losing access.
Disadvantages
- Lack of Control: When using a public cloud, you have no control over where your data is stored or being operated from.
- Security: While public clouds do have security features built in, they’re the least secure of the available cloud options.
Advantages and Disadvantages of a Private Cloud
A private cloud platform provides many of the same benefits as a public cloud, but differs in that it’s dedicated to the needs and goals of your organization only. This environment is only accessible to users within your company, giving you more control over the security of your system. A private cloud is ideal for businesses that handle sensitive information or need to comply with stringent security requirements.
Advantages
- Security: All of your data and applications remain behind your firewall and are only accessible to people in your organization.
- Greater Control: Users have a higher amount of control over where their data is operated from. This also means you can completely monitor your data.
- Flexibility: Private clouds allow you to move non-sensitive data to other platforms when you experience sudden peaks in demand.
Disadvantages
- Higher Costs: A private cloud requires the user to purchase expensive equipment. That equipment also requires maintenance, which can further inflate the cost.
- Responsibility: Unlike a public cloud, you’re responsible for the upkeep of your private cloud equipment. This can also include security and compliance.
- More Rigid: Your physical hardware has limits, which means there’s a limit to the storage capabilities of your private cloud.
Why Use a Hybrid Cloud Strategy?
As mentioned earlier, a hybrid cloud strategy is designed to help you combine the benefits of each solution. This is possible because you have access to all three platforms, and each platform is capable of sharing data and applications. When your computing needs go beyond the capabilities of your internal infrastructure, you can seamlessly scale your operations by shifting to the cloud service of your choice.
This solution is beneficial for organizations that manage a variety of information. As a result, hybrid clouds are becoming an increasingly popular service. In fact, 83% of companies used a hybrid cloud strategy in 2020, according to TechJury.
Hybrid Cloud Benefits
Using a hybrid cloud strategy can lead to a number of benefits, such as:
- Hybrid Cloud Security: One of the best things about a hybrid cloud is the ability to choose what type of infrastructure works best for your needs. For items that need extra security, you can use a private server or your on-premise infrastructure. For less crucial applications, you can rely on a public server instead.
- Cloud Bursting: There are times when an organization needs to ramp up its resources. In this situation, a hybrid cloud allows users to cloud burst. This is when a workload expands out of a private cloud and into a public cloud as it spikes. After the spike is over, operations scale back to their original state.
- Business Continuity: A hybrid cloud can improve business continuity and reduce potential downtime by allowing you to back up key information in more than one place. It can also help you avoid the possibility of overburdening your private servers.
Is a Hybrid Cloud Strategy Right for You?
Every company is unique, and switching to a new cloud solution is a big decision. While a variety of businesses can benefit from hybrid cloud solutions, that’s not the case for every organization. There are multiple factors to consider when determining if a hybrid cloud is right for you, like a growing workload or the need for a more secure cloud solution than a public cloud.
Migrate to a Hybrid Cloud
A hybrid cloud offers many more benefits that go beyond what was mentioned here. If you’re interested in taking advantage of those benefits, reach out to Net3 IT. We’ve helped numerous Knoxville, Tennessee, businesses migrate to their ideal cloud solution.
