Hybrid Cloud

There is an inordinate amount of chatter about accessing data and applications anytime, anywhere, so it's little wonder that cloud computing has generated so much interest. Indeed, the proliferation of mobile devices, high–speed connections and data–intensive applications has challenged many organisations to continuously meet the demand for more computing power. This is why operating "in the cloud" can make real business sense for companies.

Cloud computing helps companies to improve efficiency and do more with less – benefits that are attractive to budget–conscious companies with limited IT staff and resources. It has been positioned as a new way to operate allowing organisations to use only the hardware capacity they need, without paying for idle computing resources. Thus not only does the cloud model provide real cost savings, but it also keeps a company's infrastructure up to date while offloading responsibility for its maintenance. However, like any new technology implementation, determining the right path to cloud adoption is dependent on an individual company's specific needs and constraints.

Broadly speaking there are three different flavours of cloud to choose from: private, public and hybrid. A public cloud environment is open to anyone with an Internet connection. In contrast, a private cloud environment is available only to the owners of that environment and those who they choose to share it with e.g. business partners, suppliers or even customers. A hybrid cloud, on the other hand, offers the ability to integrate and connect services across public and private clouds to create a virtual computing environment.

It might be logical to assume that all public clouds are the same and all private clouds work in the same way but in reality there are shades of grey. For example, you might have a public cloud service that is only available to customers who sign a long-term contract. You might have a private cloud that is actually part of the data centre. Some public clouds might offer sophisticated level of security while other public clouds have virtually no security at all.
Meeting the needs of the business requires that IT provide a variety of different cloud services. A private cloud which holds computing capacity solely on a virtual private network can be expensive for budget–minded companies. There are some concerns about the suitability of public clouds for highly sensitive data. Understanding the characteristics of the continuum of cloud services will help in selecting the type of cloud service that will provide use of the right resources at the right time with the right level of security and governance. Luckily, adopting cloud computing need not be an all or nothing decision and the hybrid model can offer the best of both worlds.

In most situations, companies large and small will use a combination of public and private cloud services. For instance, an insurance company may have a private cloud to support its highly distributed development organisation and it may also use a SaaS (Software as a Service) human resources management public cloud application to manage those employees. In addition, to support its online commerce system, the company may leverage public cloud services to maintain high customer service levels during times of peak use. The same company might also create a private cloud application that it makes available to partners linking to its online sites.

This type of hybrid environment will probably become the standard way companies run IT in the future. A company will typically use public cloud services such as SaaS and various data services in conjunction with the private cloud. This development makes sense because increasingly companies are looking for a cost-effective, flexible and optimised environment to support customers, partners and suppliers.

When a company selects this hybrid path the company takes on the responsibility for integration, security, manageability and governance of the composite environment – including the public services that are included. If a problem arises with the cloud provider, the responsibility lies with the private cloud provider and not with the public service provider.

This crossbreed of cloud computing has its share of admirers. The cloud model allows companies to adjust the amount of computing power used based on their individual fluctuation in actual usage. So for companies that have a lot of variation in their computing needs, a hybrid model makes them much more nimble by using a public cloud for times where more computing capacity is needed. Generally, adding public space to a company's cloud model is a much easier proposition than growing its private cloud to meet mounting needs. In this way, a hybrid model is more cost effective in providing world–class computing power that is available anytime, anywhere without as big a budget commitment as a private cloud.

This is not to say that a hybrid model is right for everyone. To determine whether the hybrid cloud is a good fit, companies should take a hard look at their internal needs including individual usage requirements, budgetary considerations, and the sensitive nature of data that will be stored in the cloud environment, as well as any applicable industry or financial regulations. Let’s look in more detail at these integration needs and some of the challenges they bring about:

Companies will need to be able to connect many different types of application and data quickly and easily without requiring a lot of ongoing maintenance. There will be many different types of integration e.g. data and process, as well as different connectivity protocols and techniques some may work better in different situations, so companies will have to be prepared to use different options for different business requirements.

In a typical business you often have to map the data about customers in your line of business application, such as accounting, with data about those same customers in your SaaS application. If you are lucky the formats of both data sources are the same. However, many times, these applications are designed or managed by different groups that never communicate with each other. One of the advantages of SaaS applications is that business managers can leverage these applications with little or no support from the IT department, as all the data-management complexity is hidden from the user. The challenge will be transforming this data for use across the entire organisation and not to create islands of information.

Data does not live in isolation. No matter what type of data you are working with, it lives on specific hardware platforms, leverages specific storage environments and connects with third-party services (payment services, credit verification etc.) All these elements become part of the way you manage the flow of data between your applications in the data centre and in the cloud. If you do not have a well planned way to manage these resources and services, the lack of planning can dramatically impact the overall efficiency of the hybrid cloud environment. To be successful in breaking down data and processing silos, you have to focus on overall management of business workloads. This is especially true because these workloads are becoming increasingly fluid and mobile.

Companies should also consider the level of customer support desired from the cloud provider. The many benefits of moving to the cloud can only be realised if the operation and access is seamless. Companies need appropriate monitoring, governance and security tools to expedite the process of accessing key applications securely, anytime and anywhere. The good news is that specialisation in IT delivery often makes cloud providers better suited to delivering and securing applications, allowing companies to enjoy comprehensive data protection in addition to faster and less–expensive IT provisioning.

In his paper, The Future of the IT Department, IBM’s John Easton concludes that many roles will move from the business to the cloud provider. The new roles and responsibilities of the IT department will look at the challenges described above of connectivity, service levels, data integration and data management, and will ensure IT has a much greater involvement in the financial planning process then ever before. It will need to invest in analytics to help make the most cost effective use of the resources they have. Strategic and tactical functions will have greater longevity then operational ones, meaning the IT department will be more agile and ultimately deliver bigger benefits to the organisation.

As companies face flat budgets and high demands for services they're thinking differently about the IT infrastructure they will need to respond to market forces and the pace of business and society. Companies of all sizes are moving toward more adaptive capabilities like cloud computing to deliver new services with agility and speed, while driving down costs. For all businesses, the hybrid cloud model can provide cost–effective computing that balances security, reliability and flexibility.

As companies seek to drive continuous and sustainable operational improvements to lower costs and reduce complexity, cloud computing is an opportunity to reinvent IT in preparation for the next phase of growth and innovation.