What Is Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure & Its Benefits?

Enterprises are looking for a unified environment that can integrate with the cloud to offer higher flexibility. Cloud deployments that cater to different business needs confuse firms, so making the best decision for the future becomes difficult. 

But which type of cloud infrastructure is best for you? Private, Public, or a combination of both?

Public cloud is known for its cost-saving benefits by offering you scalability. Private cloud is preferred for security and extra customization, flexibility, and better data control. But what if you can get a combination of both?

That’s where hybrid cloud infrastructure comes into play.

Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure (HCI) combines different environments like public cloud, private cloud, and on-premise infrastructure. It is a mix of multiple computing systems which companies use for a complete digital transformation. According to Statista, 80% of enterprises will have deployed a hybrid cloud in their organization by 2022. 

Source: • Enterprise cloud strategy worldwide 2020 | Statista

Businesses prefer hybrid cloud due to its added advantages over public and private cloud. Companies with a forward approach are opting for hybrid solutions from a managed cloud provider. Providers address all your IT needs and offer you customized solutions according to your business requirement.

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How does Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Work?

Today, the remote work model is focused more on mobility and supporting multiple devices for business goals. Hybrid cloud automates the workload deployment by modernizing legacy apps to deliver consistent performance across a cloud environment.  

A hybrid cloud infrastructure comprises multiple networks interconnected to deploy a unified cloud environment. Private and numerous public clouds must be connected to achieve the hybrid model. If they are not connected, it implies that the firm does not have a hybrid cloud model but multiple parallel clouds where the data is not aligned.  

Managing multiple cloud environments individually can lead to a rise in security threats. Hybrid infrastructure eliminates significant risks by restricting the transfer of vulnerable private data to the public cloud. A hybrid cloud lowers the possibility of processing redundancies. 

Public, private, and on-premises infrastructure is connected with one of these methods:  

VPN:

VPN or Virtual Private Network is an encrypted connection that encodes the traffic by ensuring that data is connected with a private network. A VPN enables the user to work remotely by providing a secure interface via a safe network.  

WAN:

WAN or Wide Area Network is a network connecting multiple PCs over a distance. WAN connection is an extensive network that can be communicated with each across a great distance. In the case of hybrid cloud, WAN can establish an encrypted connection with the help of a VPN.

APIs:

An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of protocols that provides a hybrid cloud model with a documented interface. API integration is essential for hybrid infrastructure. It interfaces with Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that enables firms to leverage feasible communication by connecting platforms sent through open networks, VPN or WAN. 

Recommended Reading: VPN vs. RDS vs. VDI – Choosing the Best Remote Solution

Benefits of Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure (HCI)

1. Business Flexibility and Agility

Companies always look for solutions that can offer them secure and on-demand resources and infra utilization. However, shifting the entire business to the cloud is not easy while also utilizing the on-premise infrastructure. This is made easier on a hybrid cloud infrastructure. 

A hybrid approach gives you the power to choose where hybrid computing occurs and application data resides. When it’s a managed hybrid cloud solution, you can get a personalized experience by knowing your priorities. Hybrid infrastructure providers offer customized solutions where you can utilize your current on-premise infrastructure with public and private cloud to bring agility to business. This means that you can quickly transform your business without any IT hassles. 

2. Simplified Management of Virtual Desktops 

Does your IT team feel over-pressured with work? Are they occupied with solving IT bottlenecks more than business-critical workload? 

Deployment of virtual desktops takes time and money when done on-premise. All the IT problems have to be managed by you and your IT team. As a business owner, you will never want to waste time on IT things when you have other important things to look at in the company. 

The hybrid cloud gives IT leaders increased control over their infrastructure. Essentially, you can choose between the public and private cloud environment for different forms of data, such as big data processing, that ideally runs in the public cloud.  

For simplified IT management, businesses can go for an entirely managed desktop, where virtual desktops are built on their hybrid cloud servers. All the installation and maintenance are done from the provider’s end, and you can directly access these desktops from your personal devices. Moreover, providers offer customized solutions to migrate your on-premise infra to the cloud infra. 

3. Flexible Scalability

Companies face major challenges in optimizing their infrastructure as the workforce keeps on fluctuating. Due to the changing number of resources, it’s not easy to decide the overall workload of the company. 

An organization saves costs by deploying Hybrid infrastructure as it offers you scalable desktops and storage solutions that can be easily increased or decreased according to the workload. For instance, you opt for more storage during busy seasons and reduce your storage when you don’t need it. Hence you optimize the resources appropriately and also reduce the company’s expenses.

4. Dynamic Workload

Opting for just public or private cloud may not fulfill all business needs. If you opt for a public cloud, you might not be able to secure or isolate your data as you would in a private cloud. Therefore, you might not prefer storing your sensitive data comfortably on the public cloud. 

With the hybrid approach, you can shift your workloads dynamically. There can be a scenario where you use the public cloud to perform business-related tasks and keep your sensitive information on a private cloud server or on-premise data center.

5. Data Security while Processing Big data

Companies face issues in processing data and keeping it secure. Processing Big Data on public cloud infrastructure may become vulnerable to cyber threats. Many companies become victims of hackers and cybercrimes due to the lack of proper cloud infrastructure security. But you can always keep it secure with a hybrid model. 

You can work on large datasets on a public cloud as it allows you to work with high-end configurations while keeping your information secure on a private cloud. Also, hybrid cloud providers store your data under multiple safeguards like the latest firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and other features that continuously monitor your data against threats. 

6. Cost – Not a Barrier in Hybrid Cloud Service

Companies, mainly small and medium businesses, face difficulty setting up their private cloud network because that needs high investment and resources. Such investments burn a hole in their pockets and make it difficult to manage finances. 

Hybrid cloud requires less infra and hence less space in your office premises. As a business owner, you can use your existing on-premises set-up to meet your internal needs. However, if business needs to increase, you can automatically extend to a public cloud which will help you shift your capital expenses to operating expenses. Hence, the flexibility in this cloud environment allows you to save business costs. 

Recommend Reading: VDI Deployment – On-premises or On the Cloud 

Hybrid Cloud Use Scenarios

As the name suggests, a hybrid cloud delivers the benefits of both— private cloud and public cloud. For instance, an IT firm has a large client base from different industries. For one set of clients, security can be a huge concern, so they will opt for having centralized control over the cloud infrastructure to rely more on the private cloud. In contrast, another set of clients might find scalability a more significant concern. Therefore, they can go for public cloud resources. Here the point is that every industry has different needs.  

Hybrid cloud infrastructure makes space for various deployment models according to specific requirements. Let’s see the various use cases of hybrid cloud infrastructure. 

Launching new applications

For a firm, contemplating whether the application will succeed or not gets complicated due to certain expense risks associated. A hybrid cloud can mitigate the risk by reducing the demand for a significant upfront investment when it comes to launching an application in a private cloud. The firm can deploy the application and limit expenditure to pay for the resources utilized. Once the application is ready for landing in the market with a steady-state workload pattern, the firm can move it to a private cloud. 

Workload peculiarities

What would you do if the application required greater computational power at some point?   

In this scenario, cloud bursting helps out! It is a practical situation where different cloud environments split the workloads to meet capacity demands. This is done to handle the workload or pressure on a particular application for a limited time. Hybrid cloud infrastructure gives a steady hand to handle the spike with low latency by private and public cloud environments. Hybrid cloud solutions adapt to your application’s workload requirements and act as overdraft protection. 

High Availability

Having an accessible setup for a private cloud is an expensive step for a business. It can be heavy for the yearly budget. Therefore, most organizations use a hybrid cloud to promote full-time availability and disaster recovery in the cloud environment. Also, in case of catastrophic events, a hybrid cloud can result in massive cost savings and enhancement in application availability as it enables you to switch between various deployment models keeping security and scalability intact. 

Why Should You Go for Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure?  

The FLEXERA™ 2022 State of the Cloud Report states, ‘ 57% of companies have planned cloud initiatives to migrate their workloads to the cloud in 2022.’ 

The report states that hybrid infrastructure is the future of the cloud. It acts as an effective technology to lead over the cloud storage and align IT control. The hybrid model builds a centralized control over storage solution and secures your cloud workspace. Additionally, a hybrid cloud makes space for a flexible, scalable, and responsive model that can meet dynamic workload needs. 

Hybrid Cloud Solutions By ACE 

The hybrid model will continue to transform your organization as the demand for better customer experiences and more applications impacts business and IT operations. Cloud solutions by ACE play a crucial role in the sustainability of businesses by allowing companies to scale and shift their on-premises Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to the cloud. Hybrid DaaS providers manage IT resources and build virtual desktops in significantly less time without geographical limitations. 

You can also have simplified migration on our hybrid DaaS without any architectural changes in substantially less time. 

To know and understand more about our Hybrid DaaS solutions, call us on (+1) 855 223-4887 (United States) or (+91) 981 110-4802 (India) or click on the icon below to get a callback.