HYBRID CLOUD
Hybrid Cloud is a cloud computing environment that uses a mix of private cloud and public cloud services with orchestration between the two platforms. By allowing workloads to move between private and public clouds as computing needs and costs change, hybrid cloud gives businesses greater flexibility and more data deployment options.
Establishing a hybrid cloud requires the availability of a public infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform such as GlassHouse Cloud, a private cloud constructed with the help of a cloud service provider and adequate wide area network (WAN) connectivity between these two environments.
Typically, an enterprise will choose a public cloud to access compute instances, storage resources or other services, such as big data analytics clusters or serverless compute capabilities. However, an enterprise has no direct control over the architecture of a public cloud, so, for a hybrid cloud deployment, it must architect its private cloud to achieve compatibility with the desired public cloud or clouds. This involves the implementation of suitable hardware within the data center including servers, storage, a local area network (LAN) and load balancers. An enterprise must then deploy a virtualization layer or a hypervisor to create and support virtual machines and, in some cases, containers. Then IT teams must install a private cloud software layer such as OpenStack on top of the hypervisor to deliver cloud capabilities such as self-service, automation and orchestration, reliability and resilience, and billing and chargeback.
The key to create a successful hybrid cloud is to select hypervisor and cloud software layers that are compatible with the desired public cloud, ensuring proper interoperability with that public cloud’s application programming interfaces (APIs) and services. The implementation of compatible software and services also enables instances to migrate seamlessly between private and public clouds. A developer can also create advanced applications using a mix of services and resources across the public and private platforms.
Hybrid cloud is also particularly valuable for dynamic workloads. For example, a transactional order entry system that experiences significant demand spikes around the holiday season is a good hybrid cloud candidate. The application could run in private cloud, but use cloud bursting to access additional computing resources from a public cloud when computing demands spike.
Another hybrid cloud use case is big data processing. A company, for example, could use hybrid cloud storage to retain its accumulated business, sales, test and other data, and then run analytical queries in the public cloud, which can scale a Hadoop or other analytics cluster to support demanding distributed computing tasks.
Hybrid cloud also enables an enterprise to use broader mix of IT services. For example, a business might run a mission-critical workload within a private cloud, but use the database or archival services of a public cloud provider.
Businesses from various sectors have gravitated towards hybrid cloud solutions to reduce costs and decrease the workload on on-premise resources. Across sectors ranging from finance to healthcare, hybrid cloud has not only improved information processing and storage power, but at the same time effectively optimized the requirement for physical space.
