Hybrid cloud is an approach to cloud computing where you combine different cloud environments connected to each other. These cloud environments can be public or private clouds or simply virtualized infrastructures. Below we’ve outlined the benefits of hybrid cloud, along with an explanation of public and private cloud. Every organization takes a slightly different approach, depending on their needs and priorities, so it's good to have a solid understanding of the whole cloud landscape.
What is Hybrid Cloud? And What Are the Benefits of a Hybrid Cloud Approach?
Hybrid cloud is used when an organization has determined that not every workloador service in their environment has the same requirements. With a mix of public and private cloud, a hybrid cloud environment allows an organization to use whichever proves the most efficient, secure, and flexible for the situation at hand.
Here are some of the main benefits of using hybrid cloud architecture:
- Self-service capabilities and a larger shared pool of resources to allocate will improve your agility and flexibility
- Using multiple sources will spread the risk between different cloud environments and prevent vendor lock-in
- Using a mix of on-prem and public services will increase your options for how to meet the requirements of different workloads (security policies, regulations, etc.)
- You can optimize cost by combining dynamically priced public cloud services, while still benefiting from previous capital investments in on-prem resources
Public Cloud—Basics and Benefits
Public cloud services are the most common way of deploying cloud computing. The cloud resources are owned and operated by a third-party cloud service provider and delivered over the Internet. There are too many public cloud services to list them all here, but two most dominant players in the market are Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Public cloud instances are available through subscriptions, not incurring any additional charge for infrastructure or management.
The benefits of public cloud services will vary case to case, but there are few general advantages:
- Lower costs – with the right design, you only pay for the service you use without having to make a long-term commitment
- Near-unlimited scalability – on-demand resources are available to meet your business needs
- Simplified operation – shift your focus from operational to strategic
Private Cloud—Basics and Benefits
Private cloud consists of computing resources used exclusively by one business or organization. It can be located on-prem or it can be hosted by a third-party service provider, but the services and infrastructure are dedicated solely to your organization. A number of different options exists in the market – including both commercial and community based open-source alternatives. Providing a private cloud service means managing the cloud service layer as well as provisioning the right amount of resources underpinning it.
Some general benefits of a private cloud service are:
- Allowing an organization to customize its resources to meet specific IT requirements, while still getting the benefits associated with cloud services
- Continue to extract value from pre-cloud investments in infrastructure
- Higher levels of control and security
Hybrid cloud will be most beneficial when properly managed. Cloud optimization should include monitoring, cost management and analytics to ensure that you're making the best use of cloud resources.
Public, private, and hybrid cloud need monitoring, optimization, and analytics.
Learn what's important as you manage cloud cost and optimize your cloud computing resources. VCM helps with public, private, and hybrid cloud management, particularly in assuring performance and controlling spend.
