When Do Hybrid Cloud Architectures Make Sense?

When Do Hybrid Cloud Architectures Make Sense for Your Business?

Updated: Aug 15

Migrating your business to the cloud is a decision every enterprise needs to contemplate for improved efficiencies, cost savings, flexibility, and scalability.

However, moving to the cloud involves making various architectural and deployment model choices. You need to decide where you will be hosting your critical business applications. Will they be on-premise, on a private cloud built to your specifications, or a public cloud service such as Amazon Web Services (AWS)?

The good news is that flexibility is a cornerstone of cloud computing. Moving to the cloud does not tie you to a single service or deployment model. There is nothing stopping you from leaving some of your services on-premise and moving others to the cloud. This hybrid cloud architecture allows you to leverage the best of every deployment model and enables you to align your technical strategy with your business requirements.

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What is a Hybrid Cloud?

Simply put, a hybrid cloud is a deployment model that straddles both onsite and cloud resources. It is a technical architectural model for your business that attempts to make the best of both worlds, allowing you to make the best technology decision for each workload.

AWS has built a hybrid-capable cloud platform that enables organizations to migrate their workloads to the cloud seamlessly. With storage, networking, security, application deployment, and management tools, AWS allows you to integrate your on-premise workloads with their leading cloud platform.

Typically, organizations leverage hybrid models during the migration process to the cloud. AWS hybrid architecture allows enterprises to keep running services on-premise without disruption while they move workloads.

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Hybrid Cloud Financial Benefits

There are several financial benefits to adopting this deployment model. Organizations that have existing on-premise infrastructure can utilize a hybrid cloud to ensure they maximize the return on their existing hardware investment. They can continue to leverage their hardware assets and gradually move their workloads as their on-premise platforms reach their end of life.

Hybrid clouds also offer significant cost savings when compared to pure cloud models. For example, hosting an email service on-premise for thousands of users is far less expensive than paying subscription fees for a huge user base. The opposite is also true if you run a workload that requires a massive amount of computing power on an ad-hoc basis. Running that service in the cloud saves you from keeping expensive hardware on-premise that is seldom utilized. With a hybrid cloud, you can match your workloads to the right platform that makes the most financial sense for your business.

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Hybrid Cloud Use Cases

The inherent flexibility of hybrid clouds gives organizations the capability to design any solution they need to meet their unique requirements.

Leverage the scalability and cost benefits of a cloud-based SaaS email service while keeping your business-critical systems and data on-premise.

Disaster recovery (DR)- spin up virtual machines in minutes should an unplanned incident render your on-premise environment inoperable.

Many organizations run an Active Directory (AD) on-premise as their Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution. By configuring a hybrid cloud, they can still retain total control over this critical service on-premise while allowing their cloud applications to authenticate against it. In this way, they can centrally manage access from a single IAM platform they control instead of trying to maintain multiple identities on various cloud environments.

While expanding into a different geographic region the hybrid cloud allows organizations to leverage the cloud to service their new site in the new location. They can effectively extend their business to any region rapidly and cost-effectively, with the added benefit of retaining control at their primary location.

Maintaining a hybrid infrastructure allows you to use software solutions of any kind. You do not have to limit yourselves to software which is only cloud or on-premise capable. This makes sure your business applications are tailored to your needs and not your IT infrastructure.

Hybrid infrastructures also make it easier to comply with regulatory and compliance requirements. You have a wider array of solutions - both on-premise and on the cloud- applicable to your specific needs and constraints.

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So When Do Hybrid Clouds Make Business Sense?

Ultimately, the hybrid cloud model you choose needs to make sense for your enterprise. You need to weigh the various cost-benefit options and determine the right mix of on-premise and cloud services that align with your business requirements and financial budget. The adaptability of this deployment model makes it an excellent option for any business that needs to start their cloud migration journey.

Contact the team at Cloud Life Services for tailored cloud architecture advice and implementation services.