Do you need a hybrid cloud?

Public and private clouds are the future, and combining the two could give your business a real competitive advantage.While the cloud has demonstrably proved to be hugely beneficial to all businesses – providing flexible and powerful computing and storage on demand – security and reliability remain significant concerns. This is where a hybrid cloud proves its worth.With a hybrid cloud, you can run two interconnected clouds, each storing and processing different data sets. The combination is potent, with the public cloud giving you the scale and efficiency that you need, and the private cloud offering security, speed and customisation. It's something in which companies are already investing; a survey by market intelligence firm IDC showed that 73pc of respondents were pursuing some form of hybrid cloud.The real trick to getting the most out of a hybrid cloud is to work out where to split your data and processing. According to IDC's research: ‘‘The applications most likely to be adopted by the public cloud include enterprise social networks, email, web content management, cloud testing/development and mobile device management. Those most likely to be deployed on traditional IT and private cloud are analytical tools and applications, server capacity, ERP, CRM applications, and database services (DBMS).’’Supporting workloadsOther metrics can help you make the right decision, with performance being one of the key factors to consider. This is simply a matter of working out which type of cloud is best for each job. In general, it is thought that private clouds are better for steady workloads; and public clouds come into their own with ad-hoc workloads. However, private clouds that support cloud bursting could also be useful for the latter; this is when data is pushed from a private cloud on to a public one to support strong spikes in demand.For example, an online retailer could use cloud bursting to process transactional data at peak times, such as the Black Friday rush. That way, they get local control of most of their information and analysis, but can easily accommodate unusually high periods of activity.Data access is another important consideration. With a private cloud and local infrastructure, you can ensure that your business has fast access to critical data at all times. This is an improvement on the public cloud, where you are at the mercy of the speed and reliability of your internet connection. Having this single point of failure isn't acceptable in modern business – a hybrid cloud approach will offer you greater consistency.Greater securityOne of the biggest reasons to move to a hybrid cloud is data protection. With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set to become law on 25 May 2018, you need to make sure that your business is ready. In particular, after this date your company can be hit with a hefty fine – €20m or 4pc of worldwide turnover, whichever is highest – if you're found in breach of regulation or suffer from a hack that results in the loss of private information. Organisations that use a hybrid cloud can store the most sensitive data on the more locked-down and controlled private cloud, to give you that extra layer of security. This also makes it easier to work with other companies, as you can lock down some data to your private cloud, only sharing essential information via your public cloud.ompanies that have already invested in a private cloud can also use a hybrid cloud to boost their scalability effectively. A hybrid cloud will allow you to move some existing applications to the public cloud, meaning that you don't have to throw away everything that you've already invested in. Nor will staff have to learn new ways of working, as they can continue with existing applications.Be sure to perform a cost benefit analysis for each application that you're considering moving to the cloud, as this is not a trivial job. If there's a better, cheaper alternative available, don't hang on to the old ways of working just to try to protect an existing investment.On the flipside, it’s important to note that the initial outlay for a hybrid cloud can be high, to get the infrastructure you need. Implementation is also tricky, particularly when implementing the secure interconnections between your public and private clouds. Still, that investment will quickly pay for itself, making your company more flexible, reliable, secure and competitive.

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