Source: veeam.com/blog
Investigating the concept of a hybrid cloud, Veeam specialists delve into a seemingly straightforward question that unveils complexities upon closer inspection. In their latest publication, they offer insightful guidance and cautionary advice on hybrid infrastructure implementation.
To put it as simply as possible:
A hybrid cloud is an infrastructure that allows companies to use a combination of their data centers and one or more public clouds, offering a more balanced approach to computing resources.
In recent years, the field of hybrid cloud infrastructure showed an exciting combination of innovative capabilities and versatility. Organizations create unique solutions according to their exact needs. With on-premises data centers and hypervisors, companies have more control over sensitive data and security, and public cloud sharing allows them to leverage cloud providers’ infrastructure to support greater flexibility and reduce on-premises infrastructure maintenance costs. Workloads can move between two interconnected domains, providing data availability in multiple locations, creating a more flexible architecture in the event of a ransomware attack.
Let’s define what a hybrid cloud infrastructure is
A hybrid cloud infrastructure always consists of a private environment (private cloud or data center) as well as a public cloud. The dynamics of public cloud usage can vary depending on the provider and the requirements of each workload. Whether you’re a young technology startup or a well-established financial institution, ensuring optimal resource utilization without compromising security or performance is a critical challenge.
You can store sensitive data locally in a private environment, while applications and containers can be deployed on Google Cloud, AWS or Azure, including various Kubernetes distributions. Your sensitive on-premises data is only available to people working alongside the on-premises environment. Those outside the facility can access this data, but only if appropriate security and access controls are in place.
Public clouds offer companies an environment where they can scale up or down resources as needed. Many public cloud providers charge only for usage and not for a system complexity, making a properly built hybrid cloud a cost-effective solution.
Hybrid cloud infrastructure vs. multi-cloud infrastructure
The terms hybrid cloud infrastructure and multi-cloud infrastructure are often used interchangeably, but there is a difference between the two. A hybrid cloud infrastructure always contains a private cloud or data center and one or more public clouds. A multi-cloud infrastructure contains two or more public clouds from different providers, and this solution is becoming increasingly popular. The 2023 survey found that 83% of organizations agree that a multi-cloud approach is a better strategy, including the data protection use case.
According to this definition, a hybrid cloud can technically be considered a multicloud, but not the other way around.
Advantages of hybrid cloud
According to the Data Protection Trends 2024 report, 41% of companies consider cloud mobility (between clouds or between cloud and on-premises infrastructure) to be the most important feature of a modern data protection solution. This is a noticeable and generally expected trend, as the advantages offered by a hybrid cloud infrastructure are many. Benefits include:
- Flexibility: When a new product is launched or during seasonal high demand, companies using hybrid clouds do not need to purchase more hardware or overload the infrastructure to support additional workloads. The company moves those operations to the cloud, which can scale to meet that demand and then scale back when the hype dies down.
- Compliance: Financial and healthcare companies often face strict data compliance regulations. It is better to store sensitive data locally rather than in the cloud. To make room for sensitive data, companies can move jobs that are governed by fewer regulations to the public cloud.
- Cost-Effective: Using a hybrid approach reduces a company’s equipment and personnel costs. Many cloud providers only charge the company for shared usage, not for multilevel resources or storage. This encourages the company to move workloads to the appropriate environment to save on operational costs.
- More efficient support for remote staff: When all your data stays in public clouds and gives your distributed staff the tools they need, protecting sensitive data can be challenging. However, in a hybrid cloud environment, sensitive data can be stored in a private environment, while the company uses the public cloud to make core applications and services available anywhere to employees with authorized access.
- Accessibility to innovation: When you store sensitive data in a private data center or cloud, you can experiment with new applications or products in the public cloud, where developers can play with new ideas.
- Enhanced security and better risk management: Working with a hybrid cloud infrastructure reduces the risk of sensitive data being exposed. It also allows companies to better distribute workloads based on regulatory documents.
- Disaster recovery strategies: Hybrid architecture allows critical data to be stored in multiple environments. This ensures increased availability and minimal downtime.
How to build a hybrid cloud architecture
Building a successful hybrid cloud architecture depends on the seamless interaction of vital components.
- Public cloud: Many companies, such as Google Cloud or AWS, offer scalable computing resources that you pay for when you need them.
- Private cloud: Private cloud provides increased security and allocation of exclusive resources needed only by the company.
- Connectivity: Organizations need connectivity to effectively manage public and private clouds. They achieve this through secure networking tools, VPNs, and APIs. These tools ensure seamless communication and data transfer from one environment to another.
- Management and Orchestration: Centralized management platforms provide complete visibility into performance, resource allocation and security across hybrid infrastructure. Orchestration tools enable automatic scaling and migration of workloads based on predefined policies to improve efficiency.
Strategies for successful implementation
Before you implement infrastructure, you must develop a comprehensive hybrid cloud strategy. You may want to host most of your resources in a private on-premises data center and only scale out to the public cloud when needed. Or you can host operations in the public cloud, reserving your on-premises data center for mission-critical data and applications.
Planning plays a very important role. You will need to resolve potential issues, such as difficulties in merging private and public environments. Each environment runs on a different technology, meaning the back ends are decoupled from the front ends. If you are not careful, this can lead to problems. Look for clouds that are compatible with each other as much as possible.
If you have a distributed workforce, access control can be a challenge. Consider implementing group or individual roles in your organization. Role-based access control (RBAC) gives employees appropriate access to sensitive data regardless of location.
Best practices for building a hybrid cloud infrastructure
Implementing a hybrid cloud infrastructure doesn’t have to be difficult as long as you follow hybrid cloud best practices:
- Develop smart strategies and achievable goals. Before implementing any computing strategy, define your organization’s goals and objectives. Ask yourself which workloads and applications would benefit from using the hybrid cloud. Once you’ve determined that, evaluate the potential benefits and risks.
- Develop robust security and data management processes. A hybrid cloud is best suited for an organization where data governance practices ensure integrity, security and compliance. Develop a plan that includes robust access controls, encryption of sensitive data, and effective data backup strategies.
- Check potential suppliers and partners. If you want a hybrid cloud that works efficiently and offers you the best balance of cost, performance and security, take the time to find the right providers for your needs. You may want to use one public cloud provider for one workload and a completely different provider for another.
- Optimize bandwidth requirements. To maintain maximum performance in a hybrid cloud environment, organizations must prioritize network traffic between all hybrid cloud components. As part of the planning process, consider how much bandwidth you’ll need, the cost of data transfer, and potential bottlenecks.
- Keep an eye on your hybrid cloud. If you want to get the most out of your hybrid cloud infrastructure, determine the monitoring and management tools that work best for your company. You need tools that provide end-to-end visibility into all relevant components and environments in the hybrid cloud.
Hybrid Cloud Implementation Challenges and Considerations
As attractive as hybrid cloud may seem in terms of work balance and cost efficiency, consider the following drawbacks and challenges.
- Experience Required: A hybrid cloud requires two or more environments to interact. It is not always easy. Organizations must acquire the expertise to work on multiple platforms and with different technologies. Hiring people to effectively maintain and manage a hybrid cloud can increase labor costs.
- Data management: Separating data and applications across a hybrid cloud infrastructure can be complex. Difficulties can arise in maintaining an agreed and unified data management strategy. Hybrid and multi-cloud backup implementations can also pose a challenge. Your team needs to watch out for fragmented data storage that creates inefficiencies.
- Security: Maintaining security across multiple environments can be challenging. Companies must establish consistent access controls across all platforms to reduce the risk of unauthorized access.
- Cost Management: Hybrid cloud infrastructure delivers cost-effectiveness when properly managed. Companies must monitor how resources are deployed in different environments. Otherwise, cost effectiveness may be leveled off.
Hybrid cloud use cases and examples
Hybrid cloud infrastructure has grown significantly in popularity across industries due to its ability to support many usage scenarios. Because the hybrid cloud allows organizations to leverage the scalability of the public cloud while relying on on-premises infrastructure for more sensitive tasks, organizations can meet fluctuating demands across environments while protecting sensitive data.
- E-commerce: Many organizations experience spikes during holiday seasons and other times. Companies using hybrid cloud infrastructure can quickly and cost-effectively scale their public cloud resources to handle traffic spikes while keeping sensitive customer data on-premises.
- Finances: Financial services firms back up critical data and applications in multiple locations. If a failure or disaster occurs, the firm will quickly recover using resources from the unaffected environment. Continuity of work is ensured, and downtime is minimized.
- Healthcare: Any organization involved in healthcare in any form must adhere to strict data privacy regulations. Sensitive patient data can be stored in a secure on-premise environment or in a secure private cloud. Public cloud resources are reserved for processing less sensitive data and running less critical applications.
Adopting a hybrid cloud infrastructure can provide your company with increased security for the most sensitive data, improved efficiency in processing workloads, and the appropriate tools and access needed to keep the ecosystem running smoothly. Your organization can achieve profitability by using the public cloud to leverage the resources it needs during times of high demand, while reducing compute costs when demand is slack.
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