In the past, businesses could choose between two types of cloud infrastructure–a private cloud or a public cloud.
Today, however, the cloud environment has become more complicated, with a new form of cloud piquing the interest of modern businesses–a hybrid cloud that offers the best of both public and private clouds.
But what exactly is this hybrid cloud infrastructure and is it the right choice for your business? In this article, we’re sharing the basics of a hybrid cloud system and outline key reasons why you should consider switching to this cloud model.
Hybrid Cloud: What Is It?
A hybrid cloud is currently one of the most sought-after business cloud solutions today. A hybrid cloud infrastructure combines a public and private cloud service and allows shared apps and data between each service.
Every hybrid cloud set-up is different since the exact environment will depend on the goals and needs of your business. Some businesses may build private clouds on off-premise data centers. Others use public cloud services that run on a client’s on-premise data centers.
Regardless of how it is formed, the very foundation of a hybrid cloud is to combine public and private cloud infrastructure to create an interconnected environment between the two.
Why Use A Hybrid Cloud Solution?
Now that you know what it means to have a hybrid cloud system, let’s take a closer look at its benefits that make it a preferred modern solution by most organizations.
It’s Highly Scalable
A hybrid cloud model provides better control over your data. It allows organizations to choose the best cloud solutions to use for each specific workload and in managing critical data. As your business needs to evolve and the demand for its services changes, you can easily scale your workloads accordingly.
In addition, a hybrid cloud allows for increased automation. This way, you can adjust your cloud settings to automatically respond to fluctuations in demand, thereby optimizing efficiency and performance.
It Enhance Security
In this modern business world, security is a primary focus for most organizations. Keeping critical data and work processes safe is vital to the survival of any business.
The main issue with the public cloud is that it’s the exclusive property of the provider. You don’t have control or can’t see the whole cloud environment. Plus, your cloud provider assumes responsibility for securing the infrastructure.
In most cases, most businesses are more confident in protecting their data by keeping it on-premise. They want the most critical workloads and sensitive data to stay within their own data center where their IT team can protect and maintain the assets.
With a hybrid cloud, you get this flexibility and gain some common hybrid cloud oversight. You can keep the most critical assets within your own data center while leaving the least essential data to a public cloud provider.
It Ensures Compliance
Businesses in some industries are required to comply with data security and privacy regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA.
With a hybrid cloud infrastructure, you can operate sensitive data and workloads in your private cloud and move to and from a public cloud environment as the regulation changes or as workloads and data evolve.
In addition, most countries have also passed local data laws that require businesses to store personal customer data in the same place where it is collected.
A hybrid cloud allows you to store locally gathered data in a public cloud region to comply with localization requirements while protecting users’ privacy as required by specific laws.
It Supports A Remote And Hybrid Workforce
The pandemic has created a distributed and remote workforce. The most common challenge for these types of the workforce is on-demand access to critical data that allows employees to do their job.
With a hybrid cloud infrastructure, businesses move any sensitive or core data to their private on-premise cloud servers while making key services and applications available on a public cloud and accessible from anywhere with the right credentials.
As a result, it helps support a remote or hybrid workforce, providing them remote access to on-premise and cloud-based data and applications whenever they need it.
Take Away
As you can see, a hybrid cloud offers numerous benefits that make it attractive to organizations in every industry type. It’s a cost-effective way to connect to numerous data systems while balancing your needs.
Building and managing a hybrid cloud is a complex and time-consuming process. However, the potential rewards for switching to a hybrid solution can compensate for the steep learning curve.
