What is Hybrid Cloud?
Let's talk about cloud consumption models!
Last week I had the pleasure of attending an industry gathering with my peers and a multitude of vendors who provide the solutions that power business. During our time together a solutions engineer polled the audience and asked, “What is hybrid cloud?” Much like my high school math class, no one raised their hands to volunteer an answer. I found it surprising that industry experts who sell in this space struggled with defining these terms.
If you’re a business owner or you run a division for your organization, it’s crucial that you understand these terms, because these decisions directly impact your ability to be successful. Let’s start by defining hybrid cloud, then we’ll break down the options that your organization has to select from.
What is hybrid cloud? Hybrid cloud is the idea that you select the right solution for the individual application. That’s simple, right? I’ll expand on this concept. Your business has a multitude of applications that it uses daily. Bloomberg reports that enterprise organizations utilize more than 100+ applications per employee. It’s crucial that you determine the correct cloud, or premise-based solution, for each workload to maximize uptime, security and end user usability. The goal is to marry these requirements so that the business is providing applications to its end users in the most efficient manner possible, in order to improve productivity.
Some of your applications are best suited for hyperscalers, such as AWS and Azure. Some of your applications are best suited for a private cloud environment, which allows you to control your monthly spend. It’s also possible that workloads should remain on prem, due to a number of reasons such as latency. Let’s further define some of the common solutions you’ll want to consider.
Cloud Definitions
SaaS – Software as a Service
This delivery model is a subscription service that is hosted centrally. A prime example is O365.
The application is hosted by the vendor and you and your ends users access the application as needed.
Private Cloud
Under this model the infrastructure that your organization utilizes is dedicated to a single user/organization.
A vendor will “dedicate” all required infrastructure, such as networking, security appliances, compute, and storage for your organization.
This model could be more expensive than the multi-tenan environment, since the resources are not shared by numerous users.
It’s common for organizations to select this model if they have specific compliance or performance requirements.
Multi-tenant
Under this model infrastructure is shared by multiple organizations.
For example, the infrastructure your organization utilizes could be housed in a rack that shares networking appliances or space could be carved out for your individual virtual machines.
This is a cost effective model that is commonly utilized by organizations who do not have strict compliance or performance standards.
Hyperscaler
Hyperscalers are the massive cloud services that you see continually marketed.
This includes platforms such as AWS, Azure, Google, Alibaba (China) and more.
The chances are that your organization is already using one of these services, or you will in the future. It’s also common for the SaaS applications that you utilize daily run in these datacenters.
Ideally hyperscalers will fluctuate in their monthly billing. For example, your DevOps team could spin applications up and down depending on your daily needs, which will result in large fluctuations in your bill.
IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service
This model simply allows your organization to consume networking, compute and storatge on demand, in a pay-as-you-go format.
This is helpful because your business does not have to capacity plan. It’s difficult to determine what your business will need in 3 months, and nearly impossible to determine in 3 years.
PaaS – Platform as a Service
PaaS is similar to IaaS in that it includes the networking, compute, and storage that you need to run an application. It goes a step beyond this by also including the software, databases, middleware and other software that you need for a complete solution.
This model is common for those who want to avoid the trouble of acquiring software and a variety of tools needed to build a complete stack. It’s a pain!
Hybrid cloud
Hybrid cloud is the mix of various solutions that meet your business needs.
For example, it is common for your organization to consume SaaS (O365), a hyperscaler (such as AWS) and a mix of premise based or private cloud solutions. Simply, your organization selects the right cloud/datacenter for each workload.
In Conclusion
Your organization will likely select a hybrid cloud methodology that allows you to consume applications and services in the best format for your business. The key question is, “How do I choose the best option for me?” I believe the key is selecting great partners who listen to your needs and offer solutions that help your organization grow, while prioritizing security. If you’d like to learn how to perform a cloud readiness assessment, or if you’d simply like to bounce ideas off of a third party, give me a shout!
*As an added note, security in cloud solutions is a shared responsibility. If you assume your data that is in the cloud is secure because it’s “their” responsibility, you’re a prime target for a breach. You are responsible for securing your data.