Have you ever tried to balance a cloud?
That’s exactly what enterprises striving for digital transformation have realized that they need to do.
Digital transformation is a trend that is sweeping the world as organizations seek to enhance their performance and better serve their customers though technology. Moving mission-critical applications and electronic records from on-premises data centers to the cloud, for example, can increase business agility, ensure future scalability, and optimize daily operations. As these organizations have migrated workloads to meet the storage and connectivity demands of bandwidth-intensive applications, IoT devices, and user interfaces, they are developing multi-cloud strategies that effectively balance the scale and simplicity of the public cloud with the security and control of private cloud hosting for a cost-efficient result. In fact, many industry experts agree that most businesses will eventually employ multiple cloud platforms for the hosting of their data and applications, so let’s take a deeper look at what it actually means to have such a hybrid cloud strategy.
“What is hybrid cloud computing?” is a question likely to generate debate among members of the technology community, as the concept is relatively new and evolving. The National Institutes for Standards in Technology (NIST) states that “hybrid cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community or public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability.”
In layman’s terms, a hybrid strategy allows you to utilize different types of cloud infrastructure to create a single solution that provides the best functions of each platform. An effective hybrid cloud strategy enables companies to assign distinct workloads to appropriate cloud platforms to ensure they can support each load’s individual requirements for security, speed, agility and flexibility without wasting unnecessary resources.
However, implementing and managing any hybrid cloud strategy are an extremely complex endeavor, and a high level of knowledge and experience is critical to ensure its functionality and reliability. This high bar means that going it alone simply isn’t an option for most companies.
Partnering with a progressive colocation services provider can help these companies clear this hurdle and establish a hybrid cloud environment that will enable the seamless and concurrent deployment of on-premises, colocation, and public cloud data and application hosting. The right provider can build a custom multi-cloud solution designed to suit a company’s unique requirements and take on the responsibility of cloud management and maintenance, ensuring its continued security, reliability, and compliance with various regulatory standards.
Whether you’re considering cloud solutions for the first time or seeking new ways to accelerate your company’s digital transformation through a hybrid cloud strategy, just remember that when it comes to developing an effective and customized solution: two clouds are better than one.
