5 Things You Need to Know About Hybrid Cloud

Featured article by Cristopher Burge, Independent Technology Author

Image courtesy of Deposit Photos

We live in a post-cloud era, where the vast majority of customers and businesses have already gotten used to the cloud and all the benefits it brings. Now, there’s a new buzzword on the rise – one that is believed to take us into a future powered by the Internet of Things and help businesses and organizations across the globe reach new milestones. We are talking, of course, about the hybrid cloud technology.

The Hybrid Cloud Is Already Here

According to SeeUnity, a prolific content integration expert founded in 2005 by a group of industry veterans who want to solve real-world problems within the enterprise content management industry, “74% of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy, and as much as 87% of organizations are using the public cloud in some form or fashion.”

That’s because the technology behind the hybrid cloud has been available since the 1950’s. But it took much longer for internet access to become as ubiquitous as it is today, and for vendors to develop easy-to-implement solutions and offer them to clients for a very affordable price.

Excellent Performance and Availability

Traditional cloud solutions are embraced for their ability to offer almost infinitely scalable performance to companies that otherwise could never afford to build a comparable infrastructure on their own. However, the downside is the loss of control and dependency on a single vendor. If the particular cloud provider goes down or experiences some issues, customers can do nothing but hope that the issue will get solved in a timely manner.

With the hybrid cloud, you are essentially operating two clouds at any given time, explains Stuart Mills, the head of solutions marketing at Macquarie Telecom. This way, when one goes down, the other one keeps working. And even if not, you can, at least, take things into your own hands.

The combination of on-premise computing with the cloud is perfect for dealing with sudden load spikes and seasonal fluctuations. Your existing infrastructure can be leveraged to its fullest potential, without the need to purchase any new equipment.

Hybrid Clouds Can Be Very Safe

TechTarget, a technology media company that provides online content for technology buyers researching and making technology decisions, elaborates on the topic of security measures for the hybrid cloud. The biggest challenge lies in the fact that, with the hybrid cloud model, data often travel between the internal infrastructure and the external cloud.

Luckily, there are already reliable methods how to safeguard sensitive data to enjoy dependable security. Sophisticated encryption services can be implemented in a record time, and the protection they offer will go a long way in convincing your clients that you are someone they can depend on.

The Internet of Things Relies on Hybrid Clouds

The Internet of Things (IoT) revolves around increased machine-to-machine communication, and is built on cloud computing and networks of data-gathering sensors, according to Wired.com. Hybrid clouds are exactly the type of technology upon which large clusters of IoT devices and be built.

“While we know that hybrid is the norm now, what’s revealing in [a new IBM report] is that leading companies use hybrid cloud to their advantage to get ahead with emerging technologies like cognitive or IoT—areas where disruption is going to impact business results and market leadership,” says Cynthya Peranandam, a principal at the IBM Center for Applied Insights.

Big data coming from the Internet of Things can be used to gain a competitive advantage by implementing hybrid clouds to analyze the captured data sets, come to meaningful conclusions, and turn the insight into profit.

Hybrid Clouds Are Not Going Away

“Hybrid cloud is not a fad. To continuously adapt and stay strong, businesses will always need all kinds of deployments: private, public and even traditional. Hybrid IT is the new IT,” says Diana Preda in her article for Thoughts On Cloud.

Indeed, the hybrid cloud model provides answers to our basic needs when it comes to data management and on-demand computing: security, reliability, scalability, and performance. It fosters competitive environment, where a large number of individual cloud storage solution providers offer highly specialize tools that do one thing only and do it extremely well. Clients can then pick and choose one of these tools to get a personalized solution in a very cost-effective manner. Traditional IT policies and legacy applications can work side-by-side these new, innovative products to prevent IT burnout and compatibility issues.

Conclusion

The hybrid cloud model is a progressive alternative to the regular cloud model. It’s more flexible, potentially more cost-effective, and certainly more future-proof. All companies who want to stay at the forefront of innovation should embrace the hybrid cloud and push ahead of the competition.

About the Author

Cristopher Burge is a full-time writer, passionate about technology and business related articles. He is very focused on everything that involves cloud computing in one way or another.