With the rise of the cloud, many companies have decided whether to use public clouds or private clouds to meet their IT needs. While both systems have advantages and disadvantages, a hybrid cloud option allows them to strategically manage their IT needs while benefiting from both cloud systems.
What is a hybrid cloud?
A hybrid cloud provides companies with greater security over their data than a private cloud can offer while also benefitting from the greater adaptability, functionality, and flexibility that public clouds often provide. Rather than using just one publicly hosted cloud, companies on a hybrid cloud model also use an on-premise private cloud to store their more sensitive data and information. Meanwhile, the public cloud can better provide more complex analytic functions. The two clouds—public and private—are connected through a secure, encrypted connection. This enables a company to share information, run applications, and leverage resources between two clouds while essentially managing them as one.
Benefits of hybrid clouds
There are various benefits to using a hybrid cloud, including the following:
- Data Management: The hybrid cloud allows companies to store their sensitive data on-premise while still analyzing them using the more critical analytics tools the public cloud offers.
- Flexibility: Companies are dynamic, and so are their IT needs. Private clouds are more static and cannot be as easily adjusted if IT demands increase. In contrast, the public cloud can better respond to changing IT requirements. With a hybrid cloud, companies can use the public cloud to react efficiently to IT loads changes while still maintaining the benefits of their on-premise private cloud. This allows them to provide increased capacity and faster service when demands may otherwise slow the system.
- Cost-effectiveness: Companies are always looking for the most cost-effective options for their business, and the hybrid cloud can provide just that. Services can be hosted on either the private or the public cloud, depending on which is most cost-effective for a company’s needs. Using a hybrid cloud model, companies can reduce their private cloud load to retain what is necessary and shift the rest to a public cloud, which is often cheaper. As discussed above, the hybrid cloud’s flexibility means companies can adjust services as needed to respond to changing situations to utilize the most cost-effective configuration of their clouds.
Deciding what works best
Though it will vary by company, some features and applications lend themselves better to public or private clouds.
- Public Clouds: Collaboration is vital in any company, and many users appreciate the ease with which they can use collaboration and communication tools on public cloud interfaces. These features are not as easily replicable on on-premise private clouds, making them an element that typically goes to public clouds. Public clouds can also provide increased data processing functionality. Data analytics applications are often maintained on public clouds due to heightened processing capabilities and faster speeds that are more difficult to attain through private clouds.
- Private Clouds: Among the most sensitive information companies maintain is customer data. Most companies will prefer to keep this or similar information on-premise in the private cloud to exercise excellent security controls. In addition to customer data, critical company information such as financials or HR information is also likely for private cloud storage.
Ultimately, each company must carefully consider its needs to determine the best configuration between public and private clouds in its hybrid cloud approach. Once they do, they will find that they can operate with greater efficiency and functionality while maintaining security and saving costs.