The Benefits of the Hybrid Cloud

Cloud computing has already become prominent in both the business world and in everyday life. Yet with most people still using traditional desktop set-ups, the level of understanding about the cloud is actually still pretty low. In common with any relatively new form of technology, the cloud is continually evolving as new technologies become available.

One such new concept with which many people are yet to become acquainted is the hybrid cloud. While many people who are uninitiated with cloud computing believe that it is necessary to either opt in or out of using the cloud, the hybrid cloud effectively offers the best of both worlds. It offers users the benefits of the cloud computing, while also providing the functionality of a private network.

The hybrid cloud has many possible uses and benefits for any business. Here are a few of them.

Cost Efficiency

Every business needs assistance with this bottom line, and cloud computing can really help maximise your company’s cost efficiency. The cloud in general is a great money saver, but the hybrid cloud can be particularly to small businesses given its flexibility. It enables a small business to fit its needs and existing operation around tailored cloud infrastructure.

Low Barrier to Entry

The hybrid cloud can be particularly cost-effective, which insures that some of the usual reasoning which prevents businesses from entering the cloudspace becomes defunct.

Flexibility

As mentioned previously, one of the most obvious advantages of the hybrid cloud is the flexibility that it offers businesses. The hybrid cloud makes it possible to run some applications within the cloud, and some using a company’s existing hardware architecture. This does not need to happen in stasis either; applications can be altered as required in real time.

Network Optimisation

The ability to run programs both within and outside the cloudspace is just one feature of the hybrid cloud which enables companies to optimise their networks effectively. The hybrid cloud offers businesses the opportunity to push its public Internet presence out to the hosted cloud. Leveraging firewalls, intrusion detection systems and other intensive applications can make a real and positive impact on the way that a company’s network runs.

Scalability

Scalability is a general benefit of the cloud anyway, but the hybrid cloud delivers particularly strong functionality in this area. Whereas the size of public clouds is ultimately limited by the total available hardware, hybrid clouds can tap into public clouds, and therefore their potential is effectively limitless. This means that the hybrid cloud can grow with your business, at a speed that suits your business.

Security

Because the hybrid cloud offers such flexibility, it can be utilised in a way that suits your business. One way in which this becomes useful it in relation to security issues. With the ability to decide which programs run within the class space, and which within your companies existing network, security and speed can go hand-in-hand. At any given time, in real time, businesses can assign particularly sensitive applications to their own private network, while other applications that require less privacy can be run in the cloud.

Respond to Demand

Spiking can be a real issue for small businesses. Sudden surges on demand can really put a lot of pressure on the network architecture of a small company. The hybrid cloud ensures that applications can be assigned to the public cloud when user demand is high. This means that your business will never fail to respond to the desires of customers, and the hybrid cloud will also greatly minimise the likelihood of system crashes.

High Availability and Resilience

There is nothing worse than your system going down for a significant period of time; small businesses can barely afford to absorb this sort downtime. The hybrid cloud increases the availability and resilience of your system, with the ability it provides to shift system resources around flexibly.

Introduce New Functionality Quickly

Finally, the hybrid cloud makes it easier to introduce new functionality into your system more quickly. Whereas small businesses can be reluctant to do this with traditional networks, the convenience of the hybrid cloud means that new programs can introduced without any concern about system issues.
Thus, for all the reasons above the hybrid cloud is becoming increasingly popular with SMEs in particular. It is a technology that makes particular sensors for businesses given that such companies usually need to think on their feet and maximise resources wherever possible. It’s perhaps not surprising and that just weeks ago the Wall Street Journal reported the demand for the hybrid cloud is likely to grow exponentially over the next few years.
Within this emerging and already prominent technology, the hybrid cloud may have arrived relatively late to the party, but it is already becoming extremely popular. According to an IDC survey of 326 senior IT managers spread across companies in the UK, US, France and Germany around 40% of them had already opted to instigate hybrid cloud architecture at their company, or were at the very least considering in the near future. Figures like this are highly likely to increase as the advantages of the hybrid cloud become more widely known.
For small businesses that have yet to take the plunge into adopting the cloud, perhaps the hybrid approach is the best way to go.