If you’re heading up a startup or working to grow your current business, modern network infrastructure is essential to your IT initiatives. This can include a hybrid cloud model.
Hybrid cloud is becoming a growing go-to in terms of IT solutions, more so than most other data management models.
Hybrid cloud may sound complex, but it refers to a cloud environment that includes private cloud resources often on-premises, paired with third-party cloud resources. There should be an intersection between the two within an organization.
Basically, in simplest terms, you’re using a combination of IT resources that are on- and off-premises.
The goal of a hybrid cloud model is to provide flexibility to suit changing needs and promote scalability. A hybrid cloud model can theoretically work well for startups since it can grow with them easily thanks to the inherent flexibility.
The private cloud model refers to servers that are meant for one tenant, and the public cloud means multiple customers share the same servers.
The following delivers more details about the hybrid cloud and offers some insight as to whether or not it might be right for your business.
Scalability
When you’re setting up your network for a startup, scalability should be a top priority because the objective of any startup is growth. It’s difficult to get the scalability and flexibility you need if your resources go entirely to an in-house IT infrastructure.
The benefits of the hybrid cloud model in terms of scalability primarily stem from the public cloud.
With the public cloud, you are using infrastructure as a service or IaaS.
A private cloud model is less scalable, and scaling up as your needs require it can be extremely burdensome and costly.
With the public cloud, you’re also moving your expense allotment from capital to operating. With the public cloud, the provider has the responsibility of the hardware, infrastructure, and maintenance, so you don’t need to use capital investments to scale up.
Security
The biggest disadvantage to bear in mind with the public cloud is the fact that it may offer less control over your data security. You give up some control with the public cloud so you have to factor that into your business decision.
With the private cloud, you get to manage your data and relevant applications behind your own firewall, so if you have a business where you have a lot of sensitive data, a hybrid cloud may not be right for you.
How Does Hybrid Cloud Work?
While the general concept of the hybrid cloud is that it mixes a combination of public and private cloud models and that the two work with one another, there’s not one specific way you would build a hybrid cloud.
The main thing to remember when you’re building a modern hybrid cloud architecture is that you need to be able to link the public and the private. This means you would need to find a service provider that has a VPN that’s part of the package if you want things to be as simple as possible.
Otherwise, you would need a network of complex components such as VPNs and LANs.
What Would Go in a Public Cloud?
One of the biggest things to use as you’re deciding whether or not a hybrid cloud model is right for your business is exactly what you would need in the public versus private cloud.
What you might do is to store your most sensitive financial or customer information in the private cloud and then use the public cloud for everything else.
If you do a lot of big data processing you could also do some of the analytics on the public cloud, but then protect your most sensitive information in your private cloud.
If you still aren’t necessarily sure which model works for you, what’s great about hybrid cloud is that you can start out with either a predominantly public or private cloud approach and then slowly move data accordingly based on what you find is best for your business.
You might find that you really only need the public cloud as you’re doing this, but at least your decision is rooted in the reality of your business.
At the same time, you may discover that the hybrid cloud is what’s right for you.
You have many options available to you, and it may take time to find the approach that’s exactly in-line with your business objectives. However, most find that a hybrid cloud framework lets them access the best of both worlds.