What are the benefits of the hybrid cloud?

What happens when your IT department prefers to keep their data on-site? It's time to take a look at the business benefits the hybrid cloud can provide. Today cloud computing is a game changer for any enterprise wanting to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

It's important to understand how hybrid cloud is giving companies the best of both worlds: the convenience of cloud hosting combined with in-house data management. With more online data being created daily, today's businesses need access to scalable and low-cost solutions to meet their rapidly growing data requirements.

IT managers need to ensure their data is safe, secure and readily accessible whenever needed. That's where the hybrid cloud enters the picture.

What is the hybrid cloud?

As IT managers attempt to find a happy medium between convenience and security, the hybrid cloud has emerged as a solution that can satisfy both needs. As the name suggests, hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment that utilises a mix of private and public cloud services to perform different functions within an organisation.

Hybrid clouds are different from both public and private clouds:

1. Public clouds offer services and hardware that are provided off-site via the web and shared among subscribers

2. Private clouds use services and hardware on a private network and are dedicated to a single organisation.

The key difference is that while a hybrid cloud makes use of both types of platforms, they function independently of each other via a secure, encrypted connection.

Because the elements in a hybrid cloud are maintained separately, it allows companies to protect their most sensitive data on private servers and networks while leveraging readily available resources in the public cloud.

The benefits of going with the hybrid cloud

The most obvious benefit of a hybrid cloud configuration is that it helps businesses minimise their risk of security issues by keeping data exposure to a minimum. And because data is not solely being routed through public networks, businesses can benefit from speedier data retrieval times and protection from a single point of failure – for example, if the internet is unavailable.

According to a 2017 Forbes article based on the report "Building Trust in a Cloudy Sky: The State of Cloud Adoption and Security Hybrid", cloud adoption grew 3X in 2017 - increasing from 19% to 57% of organisations surveyed.

It is projected that soon, 80% of all IT budgets will be committed to cloud solutions and 73% of companies said they were planning to move to a fully software-defined data centre within 2 years.

The survey reported that Australia (at 33% adoption and Canada (at 32% adoption) are global leaders in public cloud adoption.

Adopting a hybrid cloud model is a win-win for the modern organisation- with key advantages of both public and private cloud solutions.