Where Hybrid Excels: Looking Beyond Scalability & Flexibility in the Cloud

Featured Article by Chris O’Connor, Vice President of IBM Cloud & Smarter Infrastructure Strategy & Development

It’s official: in the battle of what type of cloud computing environments the enterprise needs to adopt, the hybrid cloud has emerged as the victor. Although cloud is still in its infancy in the enterprise, hybrid cloud environments have been emerging as the go-to champion, offering companies the confidence of on-premise environments with the benefits of the cloud. In fact, Research & Markets expect hybrid cloud revenues to jump more than 30 percent over the next five years, from $21.27 billion in 2013 to more than $79 million in 2018.

What are the main reasons behind this investment growth in hybrid cloud models versus other cloud options? Increased scalability and flexibility for enterprise IT departments and quick, easy access to applications for software development practices are two key reasons. Yet, in the age of connectivity – and with so much important information being stored and shared online and via mobile devices – the cloud has more to offer than easy access and scalability.  Enter data protection and backup:  a leading factor in determining appropriate cloud environments, and where the hybrid cloud excels.

When looking at avenues for data protection, companies are usually faced with a decision – slowly backup data in a process that can take enormous amounts of time, or try to speed the backup timeline and risk making the company’s network infrastructure vulnerable to sluggish performance. Whether it be deploying a major new mobile app upgrade or conducting large financial transactions, the majority of enterprises cannot afford a hit to network performance, nor can they risk large backup windows.

Hybrid cloud models deliver the simplicity and flexibility companies expect from the cloud, while offering data protection solutions needed to quickly back up data without diminishing network performance. Since hybrid cloud rely upon a combination of on-premise environments and the cloud, and don’t solely depend on the internet to transport data – like public or private clouds do – large scale backups and restores can be handled without saturating the network. This benefit not only keeps the network clear for business needs, but also leads to a significant cut in backup window time.

To wit: Cobalt Iron, an adaptive cloud data protection service provider, helps clients backup resources on both on-premise and public cloud deployments. Its hybrid cloud option has allowed the company to offer simple, effective data protection solutions without negatively affecting performance and business capabilities.

For example, Cobalt Iron deployed a hybrid cloud data protection environment for a client that typically faced an 11-hour backup window to protect critical business data. By adopting the hybrid cloud option, the client was able to significantly reduce its backup window time to less than three hours while continuing to work on the network at a normal level.

According to Richard Spurlock, the CEO of Cobalt Iron, a hybrid cloud model has helped eliminate complexities their customers often face with cloud deployments, yet allows them to not have to sacrifice performance. It’s simple to consume, easy to deploy, and operated and managed specifically tailored to each individual business. And not having to worry about backup gives enterprises that much more time to think about their core business.

As cloud deployments continue to become more common among organizations, we can expect to see more hybrid implementations due to their ease, simple backup processes, and unrestrained network performance. Additionally, companies will be able to offer systems management as a service in the cloud to manage critical IT operations.

Has your business recently implemented a hybrid cloud and if so, what are the benefits you’ve realized?