Cloud storage has evolved immensely in recent years. Following the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting normalisation of hybrid working, businesses need to strike a balance between having their IT on-premises and using the cloud for improved access.
The hybrid cloud is a middle ground. It offers a mixed environment that combines private and public cloud environments to offer flexibility and control.
The hybrid cloud benefits businesses who are not ready to move their entire IT operations into the public cloud, but know they need to change to meet business and customer needs. It delivers on-demand scalability and added security.
This blog examines the hybrid cloud in more detail, including the benefits and when you should use it in your business.
What are the benefits of the hybrid cloud?
The hybrid cloud benefits businesses by giving them greater flexibility and more data deployment options than private options. It is particularly valuable for dynamic and highly changeable workloads. Here are some of the key benefits:
Scalability
The hybrid cloud can help businesses of every size. It stores your most sensitive data on dedicated hardware while simultaneously taking advantage of the public cloud’s on-demand scalability. Due to this, it’s easier to grow it as your business evolves, without the need for costly server updates.
Cost-efficiency
Private cloud computing is typically more expensive than public cloud computing. That is because you have the entire cloud to yourself, whereas public clouds are offered by third parties to multiple people (though with data hidden between customers).
Private clouds are also harder to maintain, which can drive costs further.
The hybrid cloud offers the best of both worlds, avoiding some of the security risks associated with multitenancy in the public cloud but without the excessive costs of the private cloud.
Digital transformation
Many companies are adopting hybrid cloud solutions as part of their digital transformation strategies. The hybrid cloud supports businesses who need flexibility for the future and want to prepare their IT operations for upcoming challenges.
It lets you match your actual data management requirements to the private cloud, public cloud or your on-premises resources, depending on which is best able to handle them. It’s a tailored approach, designed to perfectly fit your needs.
Security
Security is also a major advantage to the hybrid cloud computing system. Confidential and sensitive information can be stored on the private cloud. Reputable private cloud environments, such as Microsoft Azure, are highly secure and GDPR compliant. Data can also be secured on private servers with many layers of encryption that can only be accessed in-house.
However, data and applications that need to be available to more people can still be accessed through a public server.
Hybrid cloud computing also improves stability as certain functions are still accessible on-site. This can insulate you from network failures.
Speed
You can enjoy better data speeds with the hybrid cloud.
Hybrid cloud networks can be configured to push essential data through private servers instead of public ones. This greatly improves the load times and data transfer speeds for your business.
Flexibility
The main reason that businesses adopt the hybrid way of working is that it gives you maximum flexibility to explore new products and business models. As your business needs change, your development team can benefit from having a private environment to build and test new software. This is without having to dramatically rearrange the IT resources or architecture within the business are at capacity.
Getting started with Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure offers both hybrid and fully private cloud storage solutions. They offer the building blocks from SMEs to mid-market businesses with a mobile workforce. As one of the leading business cloud platforms, Microsoft Azure is very flexible, scalable and is billed with a ‘pay for what you use’ structure.
Microsoft Azure also supports the majority of operating systems. It greatly improves business efficiency by offering integrated data services, advanced analytics and developer tools. All these services are hosted within Microsoft’s growing data centres in the UK, ensuring your data remains local and not in another country.
Infinity Group are cloud computing specialists and Microsoft Gold Partners. We can discuss your needs to help you determine the best cloud set-up for your business – whether that’s hybrid or not.
We can also help you to implement Microsoft Azure across your business and secure the associated benefits.
Get in touch today to kickstart your move towards the cloud.
