An increasing number of organizations are working through new data center transformation initiatives—not only to drive cost reductions and agility—but to differentiate in this new business age. As late-entrants wrestle with seamless application delivery and user experience, many are missing the benefits of flexibility and scalability of cloud computing technology.

According to a Nucleus Research report, cloud applications deliver, on average, over two times the return on investment in comparison with on-premise applications. Unlike small companies that typically have a smaller collection of physical infrastructure assets, most large enterprises carry heavy burdens—large hardware pools and extensive software assets that consume enormous portions of their cap-ex budget. By employing a hybrid cloud model, many companies have found a way to reduce complexity and reallocate budget savings.

For some companies, it’s critical to maintain a private cloud for their sensitive applications and data. As this private cloud integrates well with their hybrid cloud configuration, they know that they can quickly access additional resources from their public cloud to reconfigure, deploy, and scale those apps as necessary. With a hybrid cloud, an organization can retain some computing assets in its local infrastructure and tightly integrate them with public or private cloud services.

Benefits of a Hybrid Cloud Solution

A hybrid cloud augments private cloud resources with public cloud resources—enabling you to deliver IT as a service, retain the flexibility and power that a public cloud offers, and also gain more peace of mind by securely storing your most sensitive data in a private cloud. You’ll also enjoy significant savings on your infrastructure spend, significant efficiency improvements, and new abilities to explore business ventures that would be otherwise impracticable.

Value in Flexibility

Been wondering if it’s possible to customize your fully-dedicated data, computing, storage, and networking components to align perfectly with your exacting requirements? It’s more than possible and easier than you might think. A hybrid solution is a mix of public and dedicated clouds—each of which is a distinct and independent resource.

This ability to fully customize gives any organization the freedom to store precisely segmented, protected, and privileged data within a private cloud. Anytime you need it, you can leverage intensive computational resources from a public cloud for running applications that may require access to this the private data—and use it together with the data in the public cloud. Critical data exposure is kept to a bare minimum since none of it remains in public storage.

Scalability

Configuring a hybrid cloud with directly accessible private infrastructure—not sent through the public Internet—can greatly reduce latency and access time that is typical with public cloud services.

One more benefit of hybrid cloud design is the capability of leveraging on-premise computing infrastructure that solidly supports typical workloads for your company. As necessary, you can look to your public cloud resources for handling failover operations that accommodate workloads that push past the capacities of your private cloud.

Security

In addition to how you evaluate your public cloud requirements, it’s important to seriously consider a hybrid cloud when you realize the need for enhanced security and ultimate control for business-critical apps and sensitive data. Enjoy the peace of mind that comes with combining your public cloud resources with a robust private cloud that isolates your high-security computing, network, and storage layers.

To make it worthwhile, a hybrid cloud must strengthen the security posture of your organization. But this doesn’t mean that security improvement is merely a default setting. While fears continue to decline as cloud technology matures, flexible-yet-solid security remains the challenge that must be carefully managed in any organization.

Which Type of Cloud is Best for You?

With a hybrid cloud, you become an engine of digital transformation for your industry. Significantly improve your responsiveness, while you gain more control, transparency, and consolidation of your cost structures. Enjoy new abilities to reallocate and reinvest resources to drive your business steadily forward.

While each solution offers its own set of distinctive benefits, it’s important to realize that not all clouds are equally built. Take a moment to step through the short checklist below and consider which type of cloud aligns better with your requirements:

A hybrid cloud is a right choice for:

  • Some apps and data can reside in a public cloud; other data must be secured in a private cloud.
  • Security is critical to your business.
  • Optimum control and customization as you establish IT and security policies.
  • Upper-end hardware performance is essential for running resource-intensive applications.
  • Scenarios in which some hardware must be fully dedicated to your apps and services only.

A public cloud is a right choice if:

  • Security and regulatory requirements don’t restrict your options for using shared resources.
  • Usage, network, and business demands are often unpredictable.
  • Your budget cannot accommodate private, in-house infrastructure.

To learn more about best practices for streamlining hybrid cloud migrations, we invite you to read our white paper, Hybrid Cloud Architecture: How to Streamline Hybrid Cloud Migration.

Contact us to Learn More 

With RiverMeadow's self-service and managed migration offerings, you can simplify, automate, and smoothly migrate your assets to public, private, or hybrid cloud environment. By employing various resource types in a hybrid cloud, you’ll get the agility, scalability, and efficiency of the public cloud.

Learn more about RiverMeadow, and schedule a demo, and transform your serious technical challenges into a solid, easy-to-manage private cloud solution.