The Pros and Cons of the Hybrid Cloud

Surrendering your onsite infrastructure for an offsite cloud strategy can feel like a bold leap of faith. Both executives and IT directors alike are aware that running a successful business is a balance between taking considered risks for worthwhile rewards and fine-tuning performance to enhance stability.

But when it comes to the concept of ‘cloud’ computing environments, for some companies, the term may as well be referring to a conceptual form of meteorology! Although utilizing cloud infrastructure has unparalleled advantages to deploying applications with speed and stability, not to mention relieving staff requirements, cloud infrastructure can seem both risky and rather abstract.

For some, ‘Offsite’ strategy may appear like a risky relinquishment of control. The solution to this gulf between benefit and control is the hybrid cloud—the opportune compromise between security and high performance.

What are the exact advantages of implementing the hybrid cloud?

Betting your company’s security on the assurance of a 3 tier data center’s vigorous defenses is still a surrender of autonomy that some may be uncomfortable with. A hybrid structure allows more freedom to designate sensitive data and resources where appropriate for individual businesses. For example, it may be provident to allocate public applications to the cloud, whilst safekeeping enterprise resource planning software on in-house servers.

Therefore, one guarantees propriety of sensitive data and processes, while still leveraging the scale and power the cloud offers. This extra flexibility could have widespread benefits to individual enterprises with unique data requirements, such as dynamic or changeable workloads that could utilize cloud bursting architecture for example.

Should a software or hardware issue occur on the cloud provider’s site, your organization would not be at the mercy of a backlogged tech working to resolve various company’s requests, before attending to your mission-critical offline ERP situation.

Instead, this task would be the responsibility of your own top IT guy, on your own timetable—even if that’s a wake-up call at 4 am! On the other hand, when your applications are in the cloud, your top IT guy would be woken by far less 4 am mission-critical calls, as the 24-hour coalition techs have resolved the problem before he is even aware of it.

Hybrid cloud analytics

Another benefit to implementing a hybrid cloud approach to infrastructure is the management of analytics. With millions of transactions happening simultaneously, the cloud is already adept at collecting and processing vast quantities of this raw data for you.

The hybrid alternative is to transfer the analytics in-house and employ big data platforms such as Hadoop to manage this, as many organizations are currently doing. However, data service company Birst can now deploy analytics within the cloud using their multi-tenant cloud architecture, removing a step in this process

Onboarding business and IT to cloud potential

Trading onsite infrastructure for the unknown offsite alternative can seem like a big step, especially when the existing system is working adequately well, and company executives are not practiced in identifying improvements to satisfactory IT methods. So how can IT departments convince board members and corporate governance to retire their recognizable systems for this unknown and metaphysical sounding alternative?

A hybrid approach can be viewed as a convenient interim step that allows understanding to catch up with capability in a comfortable and gradual manner. This allows both disciplines to test run the possibility of full cloud implementation, and resolve any issues or conflicts for an optimal transition.

This strategy could mean the difference between unexpected cloud storms having a total effect on infrastructure, and allowing onsite data centers picking up the slack while offsite resources are offline.

The next step, full cloud

Onsite infrastructure is only as effective as your equipment. When these assets inevitably become out of date in terms of performance and cost efficiency, the best solution may be to outsource the cost of maintaining this system by taking the plunge and fully migrating to the cloud.

Divesting floors of hardware containing highly proprietary and sensitive data may seem like a time-consuming challenge; however, this issue can also be effectively outsourced. Partnering with a certified data center migration company that specializes in cloud migrations can remove much of the strain out of this task.

They provide a range of services, consulting on timeframes, mapping dependencies, planning the logistics of undertaking this job, and addressing any security concerns you may have. Migrating, dismantling, and recovering value from a million dollar data center efficiently and effectively is better managed by a specialist, saving you valuable time and staff deployment.