The challenge is that, as the uptick in data accumulation, analysis, and usage grows, so does the need for more infrastructure, faster access speeds, and increased security in computing environments. This means that to continue down this highly competitive and ever-growing path, businesses need as much control as possible when it comes to spending for their data centers; however, this often brings large financial strains on the business, regardless of its current size and scope.
What are the potential solutions to a problem as large and financially challenging as this? Enter the increasing availability of public cloud solutions that allow a business to keep their current on-premise data center for use in conjunction with public cloud resources to generate a unique hybrid cloud environment.
Now, when it comes to building out the optimized hybrid cloud environment for the needs of your business and workloads, there is no one-size-fits-all hybrid cloud solution. Consider a range of criteria developed uniquely for your business, such as protection policies, legally binding agreements, and whether or not certain legacy software is “cloud-friendly” before putting together a migration strategy.
What are the inherent challenges and potential benefits of the application of a hybrid cloud environment? To implement a hybrid cloud strategy, there must be a thorough analysis of the policies already in place at your business regarding its data and applications. For example, depending on the type of data your company collects, stores, and analyzes, you may need to legally ensure that a certain level of security is maintained. This can mean that data needs to first be stored locally on your on-premise data center, desegregated into components, and cleaned of confidential information before being moved into a cloud model for analysis.
Depending on the type of software your company utilizes, referred to commonly as “legacy software,” it may or may not be compatible with all cloud migration services. Again, the conversation needs to be had not only at the executive level but also amongst all individual departments as well to determine the stakeholders who will be affected when the shift to a hybrid cloud environment is made.
This ensures that there are as few hiccups and surprises along this path as possible and that all initial budgeting is done up front and effectively. Although these challenges are inherent and expected, the potential benefits greatly outweigh the initial obstacles and are clearly manageable if you follow the proper steps along the way.
With a hybrid cloud model, your business is likely to save vast amounts of money. This occurs first in the need to scale and utilize the additional cloud management and applications on an as-needed basis – which is a model many providers have options for. Second, you can still utilize your on-premise data centers for everyday work, yet you can always leverage the cloud technology without having to permanently invest in and maintain additional on-premise servers for business continuity.
Overall, hybrid cloud migration may offer a best-of-both-worlds scenario for countless business models and applications.
