Here on CloudTweaks we are always looking to the future, keen to stay on top of any emerging trends as they develop. With that in mind, we published a post in late December of last year that looked forward to some trends that we expected to come to the fore in 2014.
One of the developments we predicted was the ever-increasing emergence of the hybrid cloud. The term refers to the blending of internal and external cloud resources, allowing each area to perform distinct functions within the same organisation. Hybrid clouds can provide companies with more choices for personalised solutions whilst both saving them money and providing additional security.
With this trend in mind, we take a more detailed look at three of the benefits that can be realised when switching to a hybrid cloud set-up.
One of the main concerns of a public cloud is data integrity and security, but by using a hybrid cloud businesses are able to maintain in-house storage for sensitive operations. This allows them to make use of the logic and routing benefits of a public cloud whilst protecting important and classified data in an on-site data centre.
Furthermore, when using an IaaS hybrid cloud, users can deploy applications to the best location for that particular application’s security. This helps reduce risks without requiring additional management tools and infrastructure.
Whereas the size of private clouds is ultimately limited by the total available hardware, hybrid clouds can take advantage of the almost unlimited scalability of public clouds.
This has two major benefits to businesses. Firstly, they can rapidly scale their IT operations to handle sudden changes in demand whilst still maintaining high-speed performance. Secondly, they can move non-sensitive functions to the public space to reduce the demands on their own internal private cloud.
One of the main benefits of the hybrid cloud is reduced costs. Because a hybrid cloud is configured to use both private and public clouds, it allows users access to significant economies of scale (such as centralised management) without exposing mission-critical applications or vital data to third-party Vulnerabilities.
The benefits are particularly valuable to companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue. Estimates predict these businesses will spend $1.7 billion to run an application in the public cloud compared with just $1.1 billion when running the same application in a hybrid cloud environment.
What do you think are the main benefits of hybrid clouds? Do you think the rapid uptake of hybrid computing is one of 2014’s most noteworthy trends, or is the growth of web-powered apps and Platform as a Service of more significance? Let us know in the comments below.
By Daniel Price
