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Why is the hybrid cloud a model well worth considering in midst of the Covid era
Over the last 8 months, so many operational concepts are changed due to COVID-19. Digital transformation and cloud transition in some industries, such as education and retail, is speeding up. However, most companies still choosing a hybrid model instead of a full public cloud transition. Several global surveys, such as this one made by Maria DB or Nutanix, show that the best of both worlds – on-premises and cloud – might be the ideal IT model.
There are many questions about why to choose hybrid cloud. While handling two environments sure isn’t easy, there are different scenarios where the public cloud usage at full scale is not an appropriate solution. This may be the case when apps and services are not cloud-ready and the modernization with all its joined requirements, may be more costly than creating cloud-native ones.
So, let’s check out the benefits of moving that part of your workload which is cloud ready.
Cost and scalability perspective
Many companies have their own datacenters or leased space in other data centres, with all needed equipment (servers, storage, networking), and moving all infrastructure to the cloud could be quite expensive, even they don’t take care of power, cooling, physical equipment, etc. But, when physical equipment renews is knocking on the door, many starts to think about public cloud solutions and leverage them from a cost perspective. From our experience, 70% of clients decided to move their development workload to the public cloud and avoid buying new equipment for all workloads. In most cases, two primary motivators are preparing for cloud development and cutting the costs because development workloads don’t need to be active 24/7. By design, one of the most significant benefits of the public cloud is „pay-per-use,“ which can reduce costs for the development workload by 50% on a monthly basis.
Along with reducing costs for the non-production workloads, another prevalent scenario is using public cloud services for the scalability and availability of your application, while the database layer must reside in an on-premise location due to compliance or any other regulations. Many customers will put their front-end application layer in the public cloud, where they can use an auto-scaling mechanism for scalability, which will help them to be more responsive during the peaks. Simultaneously, auto-scaling mechanics will be responsible for decreasing the number of servers in the off-peak period, perfecting the cost standpoint.
Data security
If we talk about the data layer for application, the public cloud offers many different services that can make management and data protection much more comfortable than on-premise. But sometimes, regulation and compliance procedure doesn’t allow customers to move their data layer to the cloud, even though all data in the public cloud are encrypted in transition, as well at rest. There are a couple of scenarios where customers are allowed to use public cloud services for their data. Storing a long-term backup in the cloud storage accounts with tiering can help customers to have a very long retention period for the backups, as well as cut the costs by storing data in archive tiers if it is not needed to access the data frequently.
The very first step to the public cloud journey
Moving to the public cloud at a full scale is not such an easy process in many scenarios. Potential show-stoppers could be pricing, inadequate knowledge of the public cloud technologies, old school administration mindset, etc. By implementing a hybrid cloud solution in a scenario that is acceptable for the company, the transition doesn’t be a painful process. If the customer moves the aforementioned development workload to the public cloud, they will have more time to analyze and understand what the public cloud benefits are and how they can leverage them. That process gives them enough time to optimize workload for the public cloud or even move a workload to the cloud-native services, resulting in lower costs and better performance, availability and scalability.
How to take the first step
Prior to any migration, deep analysis and proof of concept are in order. Why? Because this is the proven model which displays your future cloud footprint with all the expected costs and deliverables at the real scale. Based on the workload you would like to migrate and its specificities, you will be able to comprehend just how your data will be secured, your spending calculated, and your work cycle improved. Thanks to an optimal cloud strategy, you will know exactly which resources you may be lacking for successful cloud management and what it takes to overcome these challenges.
