The Benefits and Risks of Using a Hybrid Cloud Approach

Author: Joe Martin, Date: 2017-02-14

A hybrid cloud approach comes with challenges, but they are not impossible to overcome. The design of the network is essential to the success of a hybrid model.

A hybrid cloud approach for your business is going to allow you to efficiently manage workloads and allow various applications to be run on the platforms necessary. The benefits of a hybrid cloud have been learned through the use of both private and public clouds, and learning how to utilize a hybrid approach seems to be the most efficient for businesses today. There are challenges with using a hybrid cloud, which includes security risks, trouble with migration, and challenges with both scheduling and execution. While it’s not impossible to solve these problems, it does take some time and energy to work through these concerns.

Problem Solving Security risks

When you adopt a hybrid cloud approach, the biggest issue that you are likely to face is the security risk. While utilizing a private cloud is going to provide you the security you need to protect your sensitive information, the hybrid cloud model requires a different type of management. It becomes imperative for the company to manage exactly how data is moved between private clouds and public ones. As sensitive data can’t go to the public cloud, it is also necessary to identify those that need access to the private cloud to complete their work.

Integrating Clouds is a Highly Skilled Job

For a hybrid cloud infrastructure to be effective, it must be managed by a highly qualified set of employees who understand the complexities of the integration of public and private clouds. Applications can be transferred with ease between clouds, but establishing metadata and configurations between the two clouds is much harder. There may be many applications that are used to manage the integration of both private and public clouds, which calls for highly skilled cloud technicians.

It’s Difficult to Find an Efficient Strategy

There’s very little guidance as to how to manage cloud services with a variety of providers, and this means that businesses must find ways to create an efficient cloud management strategy on their own. Each cloud provider can have a different infrastructure, making it necessary to figure out where the environment for applications is under-provisioned or has too much going on.

Focus on the Design of the Network

For a hybrid cloud approach model to be useful in the long term, the system design must be top quality. The design of the system has to take into consideration the bandwidth used by the network, how the network will be managed between the private and public clouds, and the application used on the network to ensure all requirements are met.

Those that work with the hybrid cloud approach must understand the significant limitations of relying on public clouds and develop ways to keep information secure at all times. New software companies are now providing businesses with a way to utilize a hybrid cloud design, keeping sensitive data safe from intrusion.

Used by permission