De cloud is an essential part of our lives nowadays. Backing up your phone in iCloud, uploading files to Dropbox, or collaborating on an online project in Google Drive: these are just a few examples of how the cloud is used in our daily lives.
The digital transformation has led us to store and use more and more data online. This data is incredibly valuable for businesses. It contains interesting information about customer behavior and hardware performance. Based on this data, analyses can be made, and business processes can be optimized. But how do you efficiently and cost-effectively handle this massive amount of data? The hybrid cloud is an excellent solution for this. In this blog, we explain how the hybrid cloud works and why it is the data solution for the future.
What is Hybride Cloud?
To understand how the hybrid cloud works, we first need to establish a good definition. In principle, the cloud comes in two types: the private cloud and the public cloud. The private cloud is a self-managed IT environment that you do not share with others. You can host it yourself or have it hosted by another party. A public cloud is an IT environment used by multiple parties and is hosted by a cloud provider such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The hybrid cloud is a mix of these two forms. You would preferably use the private cloud to process core processes and important data, while using the public cloud for specific applications with peak loads. But why is a combination of the private and public cloud the best option for many companies?
All public, all private
Let's sketch two situations to explain why a hybrid cloud is the best way to handle data: one where data is completely processed by the private cloud and one where data is completely processed by the public cloud.
When we translate this to the public cloud, we see that all processes and data can be stored well in the cloud. The cloud is highly scalable, making it easy to analyze customer metadata. This eliminates the need for investment in on-premise hardware. The website in the cloud also has minimal downtime because it is hosted by different servers. If one fails or needs to be repaired, it does not affect your website. Additionally, data in the public cloud is accessible anytime and anywhere, enabling work from different locations.
However, there is a catch: in the public cloud, you pay for data consumption. This means that running core processes, essential for your business operations, becomes expensive because you pay a lot for the back and forth transfer of the data involved. The public cloud is extremely flexible but will quickly incur high costs in practice.
There are also other considerations. For example, if your data is in the public cloud, you depend on the security measures provided by the cloud provider. This can be a concern for companies handling highly sensitive information. Additionally, you need to consider the speed and reliability of your internet connection, as all your data is transmitted and received via the internet.
Combining is Excelling
The hybrid cloud offers the perfect solution here. Core processes run from the private cloud to prevent unnecessary high costs. Sensitive information is preferably also privately hosted for security reasons. To avoid downtime, the website is hosted in the cloud, ensuring that customers always have access to the website. Additionally, the public cloud offers relatively inexpensive scalability, allowing large amounts of data to be processed during peak times. This offers tremendous opportunities to gain new insights into customer data.
Looking to the future, every company should consider going hybrid. The private cloud offers low costs for frequently used data and ensures that sensitive data is in the right place. The public cloud provides space for processing large amounts of data during peak times without major investments and also offers accessibility. With the hybrid cloud, you have a stable and scalable foundation for all your data problems and challenges.
It is important to properly plan the hybrid cloud. Where are specific processes and applications best hosted in terms of efficiency and cost? Careful infrastructure planning is essential to fully leverage the benefits of both the private and public cloud.
