1st October, 2013
3 Min read
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Usually, when cloud computing is mentioned, it is generally referring to public clouds, such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) with, which is shared by several thousands of customers from all over the world. These cloud providers usually sell storage space, bandwidth and computing power to companies at much cheaper rates than those of actual, physical servers. While this saves the company a huge chunk of investment, it could also cause concerns over accessibility, availability and security.
IBM Cloud Computing (Photo credit: IvanWalsh.com)
Privacy and security concerns over public clouds
Therefore, most companies would think twice before moving sensitive data onto a public cloud. They would usually prefer to store such information on their own private servers. This type of thinking got some businesses working on setting up their own cloud-like computing processes, which in turn, created what is known as the private cloud. While these clouds work in the same way as public clouds, they are meant exclusively for the company in question and can be firewalled away from the rest of the Internet.
But in the last years a new model has emerged. Many businesses today use a mix of clouds, in order to gain the maximum advantage from the good aspects of each cloud. While they use public clouds for less sensitive tasks, they prefer to use private clouds for their most vital processing tasks. The hybrid cloud, thus works out the most preferred infrastructure for companies who are not willing to enter the cloud in a big way.
Benefits of moving to Hybrid Cloud infrastructure
“With growing budget concerns and growing IT requirements, more and more companies are moving into the hybrid cloud solution”, says Thorsten Deutrich, VP of Sales at GlobalDots. “Companies understand that this mix answers the need to scale quickly. When the right harmony is achieved between the private and public cloud, the hybrid cloud can offer an ideal way to load heavy projects that on average will consume much needed investment in in-house servers”.
But it’s not only the optimized costs; hybrid clouds can also enhance security while providing an improved performance. “In a world where security and privacy concerns are on the rise, hybrid clouds can offer added security to a company’s data”, says Deutrich. “Companies that are concerned about the safety of data can store the most sensitive information on local servers, while exporting all the other data onto the cloud. They could also opt to carry out critical operations in their own data centers, while using the cloud to carry out heavy processing tasks. Making so, can improve SLA’s and minimize downtime”.
However, according to Deutrich, the greatest advantage comes in the form of flexibility. “Hybrid clouds can be operated at any time anywhere. This gives them a global reach that allow businesses to spread their reach beyond geographic boundaries. At the same time, it allows companies to decide which process will run where – on the private cloud or on the public one, and it provides the ability to change the computing environment, according to changing needs”. If you want to learn some more about the possibilities that a hybrid cloud can bring to your business, contact us here.
