If you have been hearing about other companies and businesses modernizing their on-premise datacenters to hybrid cloud infrastructure, it’s because it’s the natural data infrastructure evolution for any modern growing business – whether you’re in healthcare, financial services, or another industry with high data storage and access requirements.
Fortunately, we have deep experience with datacenters and will share our expertise in this blog to clear up the mystery around the hybrid cloud approach so you can decide if your company would benefit from a hybrid datacenter.
What Is “Hybrid Cloud?”
Firstly, what does “hybrid datacenter” mean?
Hybrid cloud solutions integrate and merge cloud infrastructure with your existing, on-premise IT infrastructure. Essentially, going “hybrid” can mean that your datacenter will utilize both on-premise and cloud platforms, and that you can also use multi-cloud systems that combine private cloud services with public cloud services (such as those provided by Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, or Google Cloud Platform).
While we’re on terminology, “orchestration” describes managing all these various cloud platforms and on-premises infrastructure together — because while the process of conducting all these disparate pieces of IT infrastructure can be complex (less so with a trusted migration partner), ultimately it yields a harmonic result: a modern, cost-effective, and fully-optimized business.
So how, specifically, can hybrid cloud architecture make your business run more smoothly? Continue reading below to find out.
5 Ways a Hybrid Datacenter Improves Your Business
1. Hybrid Cloud Computing Decreases Reliance On Supply Chain-Dependent Hardware
The COVID-19 pandemic caused an abundance of supply chain issues across all industries. Today, many supply chains are still facing issues and product delays, especially those that fulfill IT system hardware. However, hybrid cloud environments are far less dependent on difficult-to-acquire hardware than traditional data storage systems and legacy applications. Alternatively, IT directors with on-premise infrastructure may have to wait weeks or months to make updates and apply fixes, whereas those with hybrid cloud infrastructure are able to rapidly respond to urgent needs using cloud resources.
This also positively affects migration and installation. Though migrating to a hybrid platform still takes time (less so with a migration services partner like Core BTS), setting up cloud storage and further cloud infrastructure requires much less time and resource allocation than installing new on-premises equipment – particularly if you are making a major upgrade or replacing your system outright.
2. Cloud Services Make Your IT Organization More Efficient
Cloud service providers allow businesses to streamline legacy (and often stagnant) computing environments, functions, and processes in ways that amplify the productivity of your team and even your on-premise resources. Self-service portals, lifecycle management, and resource capacity planning all support your team in ways practically unheard of in traditional infrastructure. Integrating cloud technologies and apps with existing systems also enables better collaboration between team members (in-house output has been seen to increase by up to 400%).
A hybrid cloud datacenter also allows both your employees and overall business to operate more freely. If you have a hybrid home and office work policy, for example, cloud computing supports employees and contractors who work from their own devices, allowing them to log into secure apps and platforms with their own tech from wherever they’re working.
All these features are enabled by “edge computing” – where computation and data storage are enacted closer to data sources, improving response times and saving bandwidth. While edge computing historically involved moving servers closer to locations of high activity, today it is enacted with greater flexibility in the cloud.
3. A Hybrid Cloud Model is the Most Dependable Form of Data Infrastructure
It doesn’t matter how many servers you have; computing resources are finite and always require careful management. Even with that, there are naturally days where resources are strained, and (in the worst cases) latency skyrockets and your environment can crash.
A hybrid cloud environment mitigates that risk. While some may say that latency is the Achilles heel of cloud computing, the on-premise aspect of a hybrid datacenter minimizes that issue by providing a reliable fallback if latency issues arise (and that’s in addition to “cloud bursting,” where public cloud support is accessed only once private cloud network activity spikes beyond set limitations). Ultimately, the hybrid cloud and on-premises infrastructure is the most stable technology framework for any business today.
4. Cloud Providers Provide Unique Cloud Resources That Support Your Team
Public cloud environments don’t just streamline your operations and secure your data, they can fill gaps in your team and capabilities that can develop as your business grows. Whether it’s basic resources like data storage, databanking, networking, or more niche services, public cloud providers like Azure, AWS, and GCP are able to lend their partners a wealth of support through apps and automation. The most popular of these are communication applications — thousands of businesses now depend on software like Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex — as well as collaborative apps and shared storage. For many businesses, these formerly “nice to have” services are now necessities as they adapt to combined remote and office-based workforces.
5. Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Sets Up Your Business for Maximum Scalability
On a larger scale, cloud applications inherently provide one of the most valuable tools any company could ask for: adaptability. By being able to update and patch on the fly, businesses on the hybrid model can respond rapidly to changing workload demands and volatile market conditions, minimizing both expected and unexpected demands on your system and team (who will definitely thank you for it). Any vulnerabilities that a fully-cloud environment might have are, once again, minimized by your private network acting as a backup, forming a concrete foundation for your business to scale.
How Do I Migrate My Data Center To A Hybrid Cloud Environment?
The first thing most businesses should do when considering how to migrate to a hybrid data center is find a migration services partner. These partners help you sort out technical questions — such as whether IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS is right for your particular situation — as well as develop your cloud strategy, coordinate your cloud deployment plan, and set up your DevOps team for optimal go-forward cloud management.
(A word of caution: most companies that attempt this on their own end up in a bi-modal IT support model for a long time. Bi-modal models require additional resources to support modern and legacy systems. This is a significant form of technical debt that can erase your ROI.)
At Core BTS, we take special care to craft successful migrations for all of our clients. In fact, we’ve even created a unique migration journey for the Azure platform that incorporates an adaptive, multi-stage, and holistic approach that ensures your migration experience is seamless and meets your goals.
Contact us to discover how we can help you make a hybrid data center become a reality — and give your business a stable, dependable, and flexible technology foundation for the future.
