Do you know of the biggest challenge an organization faces when they go digital?
Striking a balance!!!
Striking a balance between on-premises and off-premises computational systems, the business operations, the storage and the time to the cloud…
If it sounds complicated, let me assure it’s a bit more complicated to put into practice. But businesses do manage somehow. Now things have gotten easier thanks to the evolution potential of cloud technology.
Cloud computing has been intriguing IT people and corporate decision makers for years now because it can give that balance they have been seeking. Many of them realized its potential. Still many are reluctant to shift to the cloud because of security concerns. Having all the data in the cloud logically means they’ve been made accessible to almost every one right? On the contrary, no they aren’t. But that’s another story for another time.
I am here to introduce you to one of the latest evolutions of the cloud which impacts web hosting – The Hybrid Cloud.
A lot of companies that took the leap of faith by adopting cloud technology for their businesses are having a great time now. Still there’s some confusion regarding the necessity for various cloud solutions to meet a wide array of client needs.
We will consider the web hosting needs for now, which brings us to…
Hybrid Cloud Hosting
It’s a web hosting model that employs both public and private cloud services.
Let me put it this way.
You know how good dedicated servers are when it comes to security. You are the single tenant in a dedicated hosting server, which essentially means robust security systems and all the server resources for your website alone. Now combine that trait with the many benefits of public cloud. The result is Hybrid cloud hosting.
Still don’t get it?
Okay, let me cram it up in a nutshell.
Hybrid cloud hosting provides an absolute solution for an organization by coupling private and public cloud.
You might be thinking of the benefits now? How is it better than a dedicated server or a public cloud service? Well for starters, you don’t have to deal with any limitations of both.
Let’s look at the benefits to give a better idea.
Benefits of Hybrid cloud to give you a better idea
1. The right solution for the right job
Public cloud helps you deal with spiking traffic with a scalable service where you pay as you grow. There will be other tenants in the environment. Dedicated server is where you are the only tenant – a service ideal for a moderate control over traffic and for mission critical applications requiring advanced security.
With that said, let’s start thinking about the many use cases of a business. Different types of applications of a business will have different sets of requirements. While a public cloud can aid start-ups, handle web traffic spikes, and benefit test and development, it has limitations when it comes to security for mission critical applications.
Dedicated servers can give that but has limitations when it comes to handling applications with variable demand patterns.
Hybrid cloud combines the benefits of these two to provide the solution you need when you need it. Dedicated, public cloud and private cloud servers essentially function as a single platform providing a one size fits all solution. Technical barriers are not going to be a problem. Trade-offs are so insignificant that they are negligible.
End result – More focus on growing the business and reaching your business goals.
This same benefit brings us to the next one.
2. Enhanced business agility and flexibility
Public cloud aspect of the hybrid cloud solution aids you in times of heavy usage effectively reducing the likelihood of outages and minimizing downtimes. Host the applications in the development & testing phase temporarily till you can decide where to host them permanently.
When it comes to hosting, customers may expect a lot. They will want the services to be seamless. This is where the ‘self-service’ aspect of hybrid cloud comes into play. The customers will get the scalability and cost efficiency benefits of a public cloud (off-premises infrastructure) while housing their key applications on a private cloud. This way, the customers will have more control, allowing them to determine even the scalability of the service by themselves.
End result – Enhanced business agility and flexibility for their enterprises. Meanwhile hosting vendors won’t need a lot of technical staff, and can focus better on priority requests.
3. Improved security
Almost all of the security concerns a business will have can be addressed by combining both cloud and dedicated resources. When it comes to securing personal information of customers and their transactions, businesses used to rely on a dedicated hardware (because…robust security systems). Cloud wasn’t an option.
Now that hybrid cloud is here, they can have sensitive information totally secured on a dedicated server while still retaining the scalability and high performance of the cloud.
End result – Security benefits of dedicated server and scalability/performance benefits of the cloud combined will let them seamlessly conduct business and financial transactions in a secured, agile environment.
Conclusion
Everything you read till now is what hybrid cloud offers in the web hosting department. It’s a solution that gives power to customers while meeting the varying demands of businesses whenever necessary. You basically pay for what you use while having your business run in a high performance, scalable, secure and responsive environment. The self-service aspect is what makes it intriguing.
