Hybrid Cloud Deployment Models and Methods
Hybrid clouds are a flexible, adaptable way to bring the best of multiple models to your company. It allows for a mix of public, private, and managed service providers to optimize performance, security, and cost-efficiency.
What is Hybrid Cloud?
Hybrid clouds are made up of two or more cloud deployment models that work together to provide users with greater flexibility and choice when it comes to their cloud-based services. The combination of private, public, and community resources provides customers with more options for accessing their data than with just one model alone.
Hybrid clouds are combinations of public, community, and private clouds and virtual private clouds (VPCs).
Public cloud: A public cloud is a networked computing service accessible over the Internet and operated by an external party.
Community cloud: A community cloud is shared among multiple organizations with similar requirements. Community clouds are typically built using open-source software such as OpenStack or Docker Swarm that can be easily customized for specific business requirements.
Private cloud: A private cloud is a data center located on-premises that uses virtualization technologies to pool resources and offer services to internal users.
Virtual private cloud: A VPC provides secure access to an AWS infrastructure through a private connection over the Internet while maintaining an isolated environment within AWS. A VPC can be connected to other VPCs or directly to your on-premises network.
Benefits of Hybrid Cloud Deployment Model
Hybrid clouds are a flexible, adaptable way to bring the best of multiple models to your company. They combine the flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness of the public cloud with the security and control of the private cloud. Hybrid clouds are also known as multi-cloud or multi-tenant clouds because they use multiple providers’ infrastructure and resources.
Examples of Hybrid Cloud Usage
Hybrid clouds can also be used to create multi-cloud environments, which gives companies more flexibility when choosing where they want their data stored and how they want it accessed. Multi-cloud environments allow companies to choose from multiple providers to get the best price and performance for their needs.
Deploying a hybrid cloud environment can be helpful for disaster recovery purposes by allowing companies to back up data in both public and private clouds. This gives them peace of mind knowing that their data will always be available if needed during an emergency like a natural disaster or other emergencies that might cause your company’s normal operations to come to a halt.
3 Types of Hybrid Cloud Deployment Models
There are three main types of hybrid cloud deployment models:
Hybrid cloud model with staged migration
You move applications or workloads from an on-premises data center to a public cloud service provider’s infrastructure. You might do this gradually or all at once. The advantage of this model is that it allows you to use only what you need — allocating as much or as little as needed for each application or transaction. The disadvantage is that it might not provide the same level of control over how things operate as if they were hosted in-house (especially if they were hosted internally).
Hybrid cloud model with partially integrated apps
This model involves moving some but not all applications or transactions into a public cloud environment while keeping others on-premises. This is a great option if your company has applications that can be run in on-premises environments or public clouds like AWS or Azure. You can choose which ones are more appropriate for each situation based on performance needs or budget constraints.
Hybrid cloud model with integrated apps
The hybrid cloud model with integrated apps involves using PaaS software in the public cloud to integrate applications running on-premises and in the public cloud. The applications are deployed using IaaS software on-premises, and then they are integrated using PaaS software in the public cloud.
Deployment of the Kubernetes cluster is useful for organizations with complex applications that need to integrate data from multiple sources and combine different data types into one application platform. This option works well to migrate all your applications into one hybrid environment where everything runs smoothly together without any problems or issues at all.
Another hybrid cloud deployment model includes using a private cloud with multiple cloud providers in tandem. For example, an organization might use a private cloud for its core business applications while hosting other data in AWS and Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
This model allows enterprises to take advantage of different toolsets, platforms, and APIs across multiple vendors without migrating all their data into one place at once.
Is Hybrid the Right for Me?
Hybrid cloud deployments are a popular option for enterprises that want to take advantage of the flexibility and cost savings of cloud computing while maintaining control over their data and applications.
Hybrid cloud deployments typically use private, public and third-party resources to achieve the desired business outcome.
Deploying Hybrid Cloud Environment
Hybrid clouds can be deployed using one of the following methods:
Outsource non-critical workloads to a public cloud. If your business runs a mission-critical system that doesn’t rely on fast response times, such as a human resources application, you can outsource it to a public cloud provider. This allows you to use the public cloud for application hosting and maintenance while keeping control of your data.
Deploy critical workloads in a virtual private cloud. The other option is to deploy critical workloads in a virtual private cloud (VPC). This gives you complete control over your infrastructure and allows you to choose between public and private clouds as needed. It’s also the most common hybrid deployment model because it combines both on-premises infrastructure and public cloud resources.
Host the private cloud on dedicated hardware. In this model, you host your private infrastructure on dedicated hardware instead of relying solely on public or private clouds. This approach gives businesses more control over their data but requires significant upfront investment because they have to buy their hardware, configure it appropriately and manage it themselves.
Why Cloudify?
Cloudify provides a consistent platform for deploying and managing hybrid clouds. With Cloudify, organizations can leverage the benefits of both private and public cloud infrastructures with no need to change their application architecture or code base.
You can orchestrate applications across public and private clouds using a unified API. You can also use YAML or JSON files to define your application’s workflow in one place and deploy it across multiple clouds. A single interface provides centralized management capabilities for both private and public clouds.
This is useful when you have applications running in both environments, which may require different sets of configuration parameters depending on whether they are running in private or public clouds. For example, an application may require higher resources if it runs on-premise than in a public cloud instance with lower resource requirements.
Takeaway: Hybrid clouds are a flexible, adaptable way to bring the best of multiple models to your company.
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