What Is a Hybrid Cloud?

A hybrid cloud is a combination of on-premises data centers with one or more public or private clouds, orchestrated as a unified, distributed computing environment. Hybrid clouds exist in many forms and are sometimes referred to as cloud hybrid configurations. When multiple public cloud providers are integrated into a hybrid environment, it is referred to as a hybrid multi-cloud infrastructure.

When the cloud was first conceived, it was distinctly separate from on-premises data centers. You either worked solely with on-premises equipment or accessed online applications, such as Google apps, Amazon Web Services, or Salesforce, through a browser. Due to the flexibility and easy scalability of the cloud, it wasn't long before organizations developed standalone cloud-based applications alongside their existing on-premises data centers. The need for system integration led to the development of virtual platforms that acted as a bridge between on-premises servers and the cloud. The use of these platforms to create secure, well-integrated environments is known as a hybrid cloud infrastructure.

Key Terms and Concepts

Common terms associated with the hybrid cloud include:

• Public cloud: Remote cloud computing infrastructure owned and operated by a third party and hosting publicly available services, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud
• Private cloud: An exclusive internal cloud running behind an organization's firewall and managed and operated either in-house or through an external provider
• Multi-cloud: The use of more than one cloud service, each with distinct management tools; for example, multiple SaaS services from different cloud vendors
• Intercloud: An advanced type of multi-cloud architecture that seamlessly connects and shares data between public, vendor-owned, and private clouds
• Hybrid IT: The use of legacy in-house resources for some applications and cloud services for others
• Virtual private cloud (VPC): A logically isolated private virtual computing network located on a public cloud
• Cloud bursting: A configuration that allows private cloud users to direct peak traffic to a public cloud
• Cloud brokerage: A company providing intermediary services between a business and a public cloud service
• Cloud management platform: A platform for executing control of one or more cloud environments with tools for managing IT services, resources, governance, and security
• Cloud-native: Applications specifically designed to take advantage of cloud scalability, resilience, and flexibility
• Cloud Federation: A multinational program that connects public, community, and private cloud providers into large, scalable computing platforms using common standards
• Data gravity: A term used to illustrate how large datasets tend to attract associated datasets and services and become increasingly difficult and expensive to move and manipulate
• Hybrid Cloud Orchestration: An orchestration layer that automates and coordinates the hybrid cloud environment
• Disaster recovery: A hybrid cloud backup solution that recovers and restores data to current or new infrastructure after a total failure caused by cyberattacks, equipment failure, or natural disasters

How Hybrid Cloud Works

The hybrid cloud comprises a collection of on-premises data centers with private or public clouds, and operating as a single environment using a cloud management platform. This platform typically automates processes such as resource management, services, governance, and security. Users can interconnect hybrid cloud components in several ways:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN): A VPN provides a secure encrypted connection over the internet between the components of a hybrid cloud.
• Wide Area Network (WAN): Physical network connections between clouds are used over larger distances and often leased from network providers.
• Application Programming Interface (API): An application programming interface allows applications to communicate across the hybrid cloud.

Architecture of Hybrid Cloud

The three primary architectural features of a hybrid cloud infrastructure includes on-premises data centers, a private cloud and a public cloud.

• On-premises data centers: On-premises data centers are usually the most secure part of the hybrid cloud and the preferred location for storing critical and sensitive information. They’re also where legacy applications that are too old or difficult to deploy in the cloud sit.
• Private cloud: A private cloud is a data center set up for the exclusive use of an organization. It may be a separate data center or part and parcel of an on-premises data center while otherwise compliant with cloud-native principles.
• Public cloud: The public cloud, owned and operated by third-party providers, offers (almost) unlimited opportunities for on-demand cloud-bursting applications and large-scale processor and memory-intensive applications. Data storage costs are lower, system reliability is excellent and users don't have to worry about provisioning and system maintenance.

Types of Hybrid Cloud

Organizations use hybrid cloud computing for many different purposes. Typical applications include:

• Integrated hybrid cloud: Primarily used to flexibly extend the organization's reach and computing capabilities by reserving more secure on-premises and private clouds for sensitive data and the public cloud for automated scaling of applications as needed
• Hybrid cloud for disaster recovery: Using mirror imaging and replication between private and public clouds to constantly back up data as a fallback in the event of a catastrophic failure
• Hybrid cloud for big data analytics: An ideal solution for large-scale data analytics and deep learning modeling that utilizes massive datasets and requires multiple processors and GPUs

Components of Hybrid Cloud

The hybrid cloud consists of several layers. The hybrid cloud infrastructure layer sits at the bottom and consists of on-premises data centers and one or more public or private cloud infrastructures. A hybrid cloud platform sits above that and spans the on-premises environment and cloud resources. Next is the hybrid cloud software layer, where applications run. The final layer is an observation layer that acts as a window to provide an overview of all applications running in the hybrid cloud.

Benefits of Hybrid Cloud Computing

A hybrid cloud is an excellent way for companies to optimize workload resources and easily scale operations. Specific benefits of hybrid cloud include:

• Increased flexibility: A hybrid cloud gives you the flexibility to work in the environment most suited to the application, such as running public-facing workloads in the cloud and keeping critical data on-premises or in a private cloud.
• Resource balancing: When working with a unified platform supporting VMs and containers, workload portability and mobility are used to move workloads across the hybrid environment to leverage the highest benefits of each resource.
• Scalability: It's simple to scale dynamic workloads using cloud bursting, while the scalability of the public cloud easily adapts to hosting big data analytics and processor-intensive machine learning workloads.
• Cost savings: The hybrid cloud enables you to manage data and applications cost-effectively, adapting to unexpected operational expenses like public cloud price fluctuations.
• Enhanced security and compliance: You can better secure critical workloads using the private cloud and on-premises data centers while simultaneously benefiting from automated public cloud security solutions.
• Support for innovation: The hybrid cloud supports innovation, allowing developers to easily experiment with different solutions without the need to invest in additional hardware and facilities.

Challenges of Hybrid Cloud

Despite many benefits, the hybrid cloud may not be the best solution. Factors you should consider when deciding whether it’s right for your business or enterprise include:

• Integration and compatibility: Organizations may experience difficulties migrating systems to the cloud or integrating systems spread across multiple cloud vendors.
• Data management: Data management in a hybrid cloud is more complex because data may be spread out over different clouds. This impacts backup capabilities and how you manage data.
• Network latency and performance:  Latency depends on the physical locations of private and public cloud data centers and users. These may lead to slow response times, especially on public-facing websites. It can also affect the speed of cloud data transfer and impede data backups.
• Vendor lock-in: Vendor lock-in occurs when moving to another cloud provider is cost-prohibitive. Reasons may include technical constraints, proprietary solutions, and data transfer costs.
• Governance and compliance: The different requirements of private and public clouds and on-premises solutions make it difficult to adopt standardized governance processes. Data protection laws and industry-specific regulations may also create technical challenges.
• Security and backups: Moving to a hybrid cloud can increase complexity and heighten security risks. It may impact data integrity and security, as well as backup strategies. It's crucial to implement hybrid cloud data security and backup solutions.

Best Practices for Building Hybrid Cloud Strategy

Before making the switch to a hybrid cloud, it’s important to research your options and plan your strategy carefully. Any hybrid cloud strategy should consider your business needs, capabilities, and resources. Follow these steps to set up your hybrid cloud environment:

Assess business needs: Identify current limitations and determine how a hybrid strategy can help. Evaluate your current workloads and their dependencies. Identify the workloads you can migrate and those you can’t, keeping in mind any plans to retire or replace legacy systems.

Choose the right cloud providers: Carefully choose your cloud providers. Compare technologies, features, costs, scalability, security controls, and reputation. Look at data migration costs and interoperability between your services.

Choose a hybrid cloud platform: A hybrid cloud platform is a software layer that facilitates hybrid cloud services. Many public cloud providers offer hybrid platforms that link their public platforms with private data centers, such as Google Anthos or AWS Outposts.

Create a migration plan:  Plan when and how to move apps to the cloud. Set a comprehensive timeline. Allow time for testing, checking, and app optimization before going live.

Monitor, evaluate, and adjust: Continuously audit app performance, checking for vulnerabilities. Rebalance and reconfigure workloads to optimize performance. Create a governance policy that enforces consistency and standardization while maintaining flexibility.

Develop a hybrid cloud backup strategy: Create a comprehensive hybrid cloud backup plan. Establish sophisticated backup policies that ensure reliable backups and disaster recovery processes, regardless of where or how you store your data. Choose vendor platforms that offer the widest possible range of backup, replication, and recovery solutions consistent with your current and future hybrid cloud partners.

Hybrid Cloud Use Cases

The hybrid cloud is increasingly attractive for companies that need the benefits of scalability, data security and high system availability. Business use cases for the hybrid cloud include:

• Health care: The hybrid cloud is ideal for securely storing and processing electronic medical records while facilitating easy access by medical practitioners using mobile devices.
• E-commerce: Retailers can scale capacity using hybrid clouds to meet buyer demand while storing critical data behind firewalls
• Finance: Using hybrid cloud technologies, banks can meet regulatory requirements to store customer data locally while minimizing latency and service disruptions
• Government: Confidential computing in the hybrid cloud allows governments to rapidly scale services beyond traditional data centers while maintaining data privacy
• Gaming: Using edge computing and hybrid clouds, gaming vendors can serve complex games, allowing gamers to play advanced games using virtual GPUs and CPUs

The Future of Hybrid Cloud

While growth in the public cloud seems to be declining, the hybrid cloud is still growing strongly. Although public clouds are highly scalable and readily accessible, large-scale use can become expensive. The hybrid cloud eliminates this problem, and the effectiveness of this approach is seen in industry forecasts that predict the hybrid cloud market will triple in size to $262 billion by 2027.

The adoption of standardized architectures, such as Kubernetes and containers that run across multiple clouds, simplifies hybrid cloud development and facilitates workload portability. Edge computing is fast becoming part and parcel of hybrid computing with its ability to reduce latency, operate with reduced bandwidth, and increase resiliency.

How to Get Started With Veeam

The hybrid cloud provides greater resilience and stability, although the operation of on-premises data centers together with private and public clouds significantly increases system complexity. Data is more widely distributed, and managing replication, backups, and disaster recovery strategies is more difficult. You need a hybrid cloud backup solution that controls, protects, and manages your data no matter where it is. Veeam provides a variety of backup and recovery solutions to suit all workloads.

Get your free 30-day trial for Veeam Data Platform so that you can experience the seamless protection of your hybrid cloud environments no matter which public cloud or clouds you are using. Experience GenAI insights, advanced threat detection, and easy enterprise hybrid multi-cloud migration by clicking here.