With all the buzz about cloud computing these days, it’s easy to get lost in all the new technical lingo. One term that confuses many people is “hybrid cloud” (sometimes known as “cloud hybrid”). What, exactly does “hybrid cloud” mean?
A hybrid cloud environment is one in which an organization uses both “public cloud” resources, such as those provided by Microsoft Azure, with on-premise infrastructure. Some cloud experts also define “hybrid cloud” as an environment that includes more than one public cloud, but for purposes of this article we focus on the single public cloud and on-premise environment.
Given the numerous advantages of cloud computing, why would anyone need a solution that also involves an on-premise data center?
Benefits of the Hybrid Cloud Approach
Some organizations find that a hybrid cloud solution is necessary for various technical, regulatory, or business reasons. The good news is that even a hybrid solution can save you money. Here’s how:
Backups
Many organizations spend thousands of dollars each year on tape backups. First, the tapes can be expensive, and you need to engage with a secure storage company to store them off-site. And if you need to restore something from tape, it can take a day or more for the storage company to locate the tape and deliver it.
By backing up your on-premise applications and data to the cloud, you eliminate the tape costs, storage fees, and restoration delays.
Disaster Recovery
In a similar vein, disaster recovery is simplified with cloud backups. If some disaster befalls your on-premise data center, you can continue operating in the cloud–thereby preventing loss of revenue–while you restore your on-premise facilities.
High Availability
Some businesses are obligated by contracts or regulations to maintain geographically separate IT infrastructure facilities to guarantee a certain level of system uptime. Why invest in (and maintain, and power, and cool) a second data center, or rent space in a colocation facility, when your second “data center” can be the cloud?
Security
Using tools such as Azure Security Center and Azure Sentinel, you can protect both your on-premise and cloud environments with a single security suite. And because these tools are themselves cloud-based, they are always on and always up to date, reducing maintenance time and effort.
Internet of Things Devices
Many businesses are deploying hundreds or thousands of network-connected sensors, actuators, and other internet-of-things (IoT) devices. All of these devices communicating to the cloud at one time could saturate your network bandwidth. Instead of spending money on bigger and bigger network “pipes,” businesses are deploying “edge servers” in their data centers to collect and summarize the IoT data before sending it to the cloud.
Software Development
If you have developers building software for deployment in your data center, cloud-based development environments are much more cost-efficient than local development boxes. The reduced hardware costs and faster setup of development and test environments can reduce your overall development costs and cycle times.
360 Visibility and Hybrid Cloud Solutions
At 360 Visibility, we are experts in designing and building hybrid cloud environments with Microsoft Azure. Contact 360 Visibility today to discuss whether a hybrid approach is best for your situation and how we can help make it a reality.