Top Benefits of Hybrid Cloud for Businesses

Hybrid cloud is a concept that has been around for a long time. Hybrid cloud tries to adopt the best of public cloud, private cloud, on-premises, and edge computing to create an agile digital business environment. The hybrid cloud is gaining popularity due to its benefits and advantages, but businesses need to keep it simple at the same time. So, let’s learn more about the hybrid cloud, and understand its advantages over other cloud service models, use cases, and architecture so that you can create an open unified hybrid cloud platform. 

What is hybrid cloud architecture? 

Hybrid cloud is an IT architecture that provides workload portability, orchestration, and management across two or more environments. Some of the common hybrid cloud scenarios include at least one private cloud and public cloud or a bare-metal environment connected to one or more public and/or private clouds. 

Traditionally, hybrid cloud architecture focused on transforming parts of the on-premises infrastructure to public cloud infrastructure first and then connecting it to an off-premises public cloud environment. This involved sophisticated enterprise middleware for cloud resource integration across different environments and unified management tools to monitor, allocate and manage resources centrally. 

Modern hybrid cloud architecture focuses more on portability and automating the deployment of workloads in all environments rather than physical connectivity. 

The components for building an open unified hybrid cloud platform are 

• Cloud-native technologies– Technologies that help to develop, deploy and manage the performance of applications across different cloud environments and vendors. 
• Microservices– This involves breaking down applications into small, loosely coupled reusable components based on specific business functionality. 
• Containers – Packages or executable units that only contain application and the virtualized operating system dependencies required to run it. 
• Infrastructure virtualization – Infrastructure as code helps developers to create required resources using cloud or compute resources. 

Hybrid cloud benefits  

There are many advantages to hybrid cloud, and it is a safer choice for organizations to avoid vendor lock-in. Here are 10 benefits of a hybrid cloud that you can use to your advantage in designing the hybrid cloud environment for your business.  

Migrate workloads faster  

By adopting hybrid cloud architecture, businesses can quickly migrate workloads without refactoring using tools and processes that are already familiar with. It also allows businesses to access cloud-native services from the new hybrid cloud environment at the same time. For example, an HRM tool working on-prem can be migrated to the public cloud easily. 

Modernize application  

Cloud services can be used to improve the user experience of the existing application and extend them to new devices. This can be done by creating and deploying microservices and container-based applications while operating workloads on virtual machines on the same cloud platform. 

Improve scalability and resilience  

One of the greatest benefits of the hybrid cloud is the agility that the public cloud brings. Businesses can leverage the agility and scale of the public cloud while making use of tools and processes that they are already familiar with. The compute and storage resources from the public cloud can be set to automatically scale up quickly, and cost-effectively in response to spikes in traffic without impacting workloads on the private cloud and services. This is called cloud bursting. 

Better application governance 

When using a hybrid cloud model, businesses can decide where the application, data, and workloads reside and where the computing takes place. This gives more control to the organization as they can consider various factors like regulatory compliance, cost, and security when deciding which application goes where. 

Reduce latency and improve performance  

Hybrid cloud solutions can reduce latency in distributed applications by choosing the right locations. Dedicated direct connection services like Azure ExpressRoute, AWS Direct Connect, and Google Direct Peering from public cloud providers also helps in reducing latency and improving performance. 

Ensure security and compliance  

Data breaches and security loopholes are some of the major concerns in the digital world. Many countries have regulations like GDPR when it comes to data and workloads.  When implementing a hybrid cloud architecture, it is easier for businesses to comply with such mandates. 

Reduce IT workload  

With hybrid cloud, organizations can offer self-service to developers and application owners in on-premises and public cloud environments and handle more requests and reduce the number of IT support staff required to do repetitive tasks related to new VMs and containers. 

More flexibility  

Organizations can decide when and where to deploy data and workloads and speed up IT response to changing needs of the business and create portable applications. The hybrid cloud also allows rapid adoption of new technologies, and SaaS solutions and support their integration into applications without a new on-premises infrastructure. 

Optimize resources and save costs  

Optimizing resource usage is easier with the hybrid cloud. Businesses can run workloads with predictable traffic and capacity on-premises while keeping the ones that are variable on the public cloud. The public cloud can also be used to speed up development and testing to save costs. 

Increase ROI 

Hybrid cloud can increase the capabilities of existing on-premises infrastructure by extending them to the public cloud. Google cloud offers advanced AI capabilities while Microsoft Azure provides a robust platform for developers. Businesses can choose the right public cloud service providers based on their needs to increase the ROI. 

Hybrid cloud challenges  

Higher capital expenditure 

Hybrid cloud requires higher initial investment and maintenance costs, especially for the private component of the hybrid cloud architecture. 

Lack of complete visibility 

Business owners will not have complete visibility of the overall cloud environment and also have lesser control over it. Choose public cloud managed services that can give you a clear view of the applications and systems. 

Network issues and performance level 

Hybrid cloud architecture depends on portability and requires high bandwidth connections and complex interconnections. So, latency in the network can affect business performance especially if the business-critical assets are on the public cloud. 

3 Core steps in designing a hybrid cloud architecture 

Connectivity and interoperability 

The core concept of hybrid cloud. In a hybrid cloud, businesses have applications running on-premises, private cloud, and public cloud. So, connecting these components securely is important to a hybrid cloud. Kubernetes, Linux-based containers, multi-cluster management tools, etc are some of the open-source solutions that can be used to achieve this. 

Modernization  

Another core part of hybrid cloud architecture is modernizing the existing legacy applications to make the best use of the cloud environment. For example, you might need to break and move a monolithic application from on-premises to the public cloud so that you can use the scalability of the public cloud. Find the right strategies to modernize legacy applications. 

Security  

Data breaches are more common and security regulations are becoming more and more strict. When creating a hybrid cloud solution, it is important to create solutions that let you keep the security and ease of use on-premises while moving some assets to the public and private cloud. 

Hybrid cloud can increase the capabilities of existing on-premises infrastructure by extending them to the public cloud. Google cloud offers advanced AI capabilities while Microsoft Azure provides a robust platform for developers. Businesses can choose the right public cloud service providers based on their needs to increase the ROI. 

Conclusion 

Hybrid cloud is a popular cloud adoption model as it provides the scalability and flexibility of the public cloud and security and control over assets in the on-premises or private cloud. Cloud adoption rates are increasing, and a hybrid cloud strategy can help you in making a smooth transition to modernizing existing legacy applications and architecting new applications. To create the right hybrid cloud strategy to reduce cost and optimize the performance of your hybrid cloud environment, you need experienced cloud experts. The cloud migration expert at Nuvento can help you strategize and create the right open unified hybrid cloud solution for your business.