Hybrid Cloud Solutions - The Future of Enterprise IT

Cloud computing is a technological revolution in progress and has been emerging as one of the most reliable paths for business innovation. Facilitating businesses to be more agile and responsive to the dynamic conditions and opportunities, cloud computing propels productivity growth and widen profit margins. 

As the adoption of disruptive technology advances in this era of cloud computing, it is clear that companies are unlocking new sources of productivity, collaboration, flexibility and performance improvement. From on-demand network access to scalability and greater security, the true value of cloud computing catapults enterprises into a new dimension of competitiveness. Combined with the next wave of intelligent technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain, Big Data, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud computing can transform the way organizations approach operational issues. 

Cloud computing solutions have become the new norm for enterprises and the latest Gartner report points to the fact that this differentiated technology will continue to make headway in the technological landscape. As we look ahead, it is clear that there are some definitive trends floating around cloud computing and Hybrid cloud is assumed to represent the new norm of enterprise computing. Resolving the binary paradigm of cloud infrastructure by leveraging the best of both worlds, hybrid cloud strategy is poised to dominate the industry moving forward.

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, hybrid cloud is defined as 

“ composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability.”

Every hybrid cloud model is different in its structure and layout, as it is devised to meet the unique needs of an enterprise.  This complete cloud solution can be leveraged to combine the high security attributes of private cloud with the easy-to-access features of public cloud so that it caters to a diverse range of use cases and complex deployment scenarios. Leveraging both sides of the equation, a hybrid cloud infrastructure creates a unified, automated, and well-maintained computing environment for business. This would ensure greater flexibility in moving workloads between different cloud solutions according to the dynamic needs and fluctuating costs. 

Architecting a hybrid cloud enables organizations to tap advantages of public and private cloud deployments simultaneously. However, its main value lies in facilitating digital business transformation by gaining agility. 

Organizations often find it challenging to choose between deploying applications on premises and public cloud. In most cases, companies continue to maintain their data centers for ensuring security, compliance and operational control. Nonetheless, enterprises are always in need for more resources. For instance, your organization may need  additional computing and storage resources to meet the occasional demand spike - and then scale back to the original in-house servers when demand subsides. Hence, restricting your cloud computing infrastructure to the boundaries of your private data centres doesn’t seem a sensible choice, when you have public cloud services to access as many resources as you need. Integrating public cloud service into your existing IT strategy not only ensures an affordable solution for processing high-volume data spikes but also helps in avoiding costly downtime. 

As we look at some of the top benefits of hybrid cloud solutions, the answer to “why choose hybrid cloud?” becomes well-defined. 

Hybrid cloud offers the best disaster recovery option along with an easily-accessible private infrastructure. Deploying a hybrid cloud solution allows enterprise to pick out their applications, data, and resources that can be put in the public cloud or in a private environment. In most cases, critical and sensitive resources are stored in data center or private cloud deployments whereas a public cloud will be used for less critical resources. This would allow the organizations to reap the benefits of speed and flexibility of the cloud without having to replace their entire IT infrastructure. Furthermore, it can be a disaster recovery approach with an efficient route to protect critical applications. 

In the world of IT infrastructure, agility and flexibility is need of the hour. Organizations, regardless of their size and niche, should be able to respond to the changing business and customer demands efficiently. Hybrid cloud approach empowers enterprises with an unprecedented level of flexibility in optimizing the use of compute, storage, and networking resources. Nurturing greater IT and business collaboration, a hybrid cloud strategy creates an environment that can be scaled up or dialed back as your business needs grow and change. 

Hybrid cloud reduces your total cost of ownership thereby providing the benefit of being cost-effective. Disaster recovery options, cloud bursting and several other attributes of hybrid cloud environment enables organizations to reduce costs. Switching the IT spending to hybrid cloud’s pay-as-you-go model reduces capital expenses (CapEx) to a greater extent. Not only this cloud strategy matches your cost patterns to demand patterns, but also support current and future growth seamlessly. 

Increasing demand for scalability, efficient productivity and secure data access leads to the growing adoption of hybrid cloud solutions. Rising popularity of big data management tools, artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) also acts as a growth catalyst. According to a report published by Allied Market Research, “the global hybrid cloud market is projected to reach $171,926 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 21.7% from 2018 to 2025.” Big cloud and IT players like Microsoft Corporation, Amazon Web Services, VMware, Rackspace, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM and Google LLC have been operating the global hybrid cloud market.

Hybrid cloud architecture tackles the issues raised by several businesses for embracing public cloud - regulatory compliance, data privacy and jurisdiction requirements. 

Businesses of all scales and industries can leverage hybrid cloud solutions to bring application services and data together to gain a major foothold in the competitive market. Complete operational consistency and seamless workload portability of hybrid cloud strategies provide the freedom and flexibility to innovate faster and seize opportunities. Companies operating in finance, healthcare and legal sectors need to operate under extremely specific regulatory requirements and information management standards. Moreover, many applications and services in these industries follow a legacy infrastructure being in place for decades. Extending the existing legacy system or rewriting an entire application would be costly and complex. Hybrid cloud strategies allow enterprises to avail the most cost-effective and innovative solutions without incurring a large capital outlay of moving to a full cloud environment. 

The first step towards cloud implementation lies in understanding the business value and use cases where hybrid cloud can be leveraged. Several factors have to be taken into consideration while implementing a hybrid cloud in any organization. However, the following seven steps are more universal for any cloud implementation process. 

Organizations choosing a hybrid approach can achieve financial and operational advantages, provided you plan early for creating a thoughtful migration plan. 

Hybrid cloud computing is a valuable solution that delivers improved user experience, increased resiliency and greater flexibility. Yet, like any other emerging technology, it comes with a fair share of challenges and issues. The top challenges faced by the organizations include security risks, compliance issues, integration complexity, components partitioning and scaling complications. However, the good news is that all of these issues and complexities can be addressed with a well-planned strategy. Partnering with a managed service provider helps in making smarter choices  and mapping out a successful cloud strategy. 

All things considered, we can say that the versatility and flexibility of hybrid cloud strategy will dominate the industry moving forward. And as the hybrid cloud adoption becomes mainstream, enterprises need to perceive its full potential and address the unique complexities to derive its substantial benefits.