To keep pace with the dynamic environment of digitally-driven business, organizations continue to embrace hybrid cloud, which combines and unifies public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises infrastructure, while providing orchestration, management, and application portability across all three. According to the IBM Transformation Index: State of Cloud, a 2022 survey commissioned by IBM and conducted by an independent research firm, more than 77% of business and IT professionals say they have adopted a hybrid cloud approach. By creating an agile, flexible, and scalable computing environment, hybrid cloud offers valuable use cases for businesses to accelerate growth and gain a competitive advantage.
What is hybrid cloud? A hybrid cloud environment consists of three basic components:
- On-premises (also referred to as “on-prem”) is a traditional form of computing that involves an organization running and managing computing resources, networking, storage, and software on hardware and servers at its own physical location, such as in an office building or at an on-premises data center.
- Public cloud is a form of cloud computing where a third-party cloud service provider (CSP)—e.g., Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Services, IBM Cloud, or Microsoft Azure)—hosts public cloud resources like individual virtual machines (VM) and services over the public internet.
- Private cloud is a cloud computing environment where all resources are isolated and operated exclusively for one customer. Private cloud combines many benefits of cloud computing with the security and control of on-premises IT infrastructure.
Initially, hybrid cloud computing focused on incorporating portions of on-premises data into private cloud infrastructure and then connecting that infrastructure to public cloud infrastructure hosted off-premises by third-party cloud providers, such as AWS. This was accomplished using a packaged hybrid cloud solution like Red Hat® OpenShift® or middleware and IT management tools to create a single API or dashboard. This ‘single pane of glass’ gave IT teams a unified view of their applications, networks, and systems.
Today, hybrid cloud architecture has expanded beyond physical connectivity and basic cloud migration to offer a flexible, secure, and cost-effective environment that supports the portability and automated deployment of workloads across multiple environments.
Hybrid cloud vs. multicloud
Hybrid cloud is frequently confused with multicloud, which refers to using cloud services from more than one cloud vendor. A multicloud environment helps prevent vendor lock-in, which can result in technical incompatibilities, legal restrictions, and excess costs tied to using just one vendor. It’s important to note that modern hybrid cloud architecture has evolved to where hybrid cloud and multicloud settings work in sync with each other. Most modern enterprise businesses have adopted hybrid multicloud environments, which combine the integration of public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises infrastructure, along with public or private cloud services from at least two cloud service providers.
The modern hybrid cloud platform
A unified hybrid cloud platform plays an important role in application modernization—the software approach that allows developers to transform monolithic applications into microservices focused on specific business function. Microservices are an architectural approach in which a single application comprises many loosely coupled and independently deployable smaller components, or services. These applications are then deployed in containers—lightweight packages of software comprised only of the application code and virtualized operating system dependencies needed to run in any environment depending on the workload. A container orchestration platform—usually Kubernetes—then automates that deployment across hybrid cloud and multicloud environments. Additionally, modern hybrid cloud environments no longer require physical locations to “connect,” as they did when organizations ran private clouds exclusively on-premises. In contrast, these environments are now often hosted in off-premises data centers, on virtual private networks (VPNs), virtual private clouds (VPCs), or on rented infrastructure from third-party providers.
Six common hybrid cloud use cases
Workloads, infrastructure, and processes are unique to each enterprise. To that end, a hybrid cloud—or hybrid multicloud—strategy allows organizations to customize solutions to meet their specific technical demands and business needs. Here are six compelling use cases that demonstrate how hybrid cloud adoption delivers significant business benefits.
- Digital transformation: A hybrid cloud setting provides multiple ways to modernize IT infrastructure specific to each workload. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses needed to modernize their IT infrastructure and create more resilient business operations. A hybrid cloud solution allowed organizations to migrate sensitive data to their private on-premises servers while making key applications and services on the public cloud accessible to any employee in any location.
- Disaster recovery (DR): A hybrid cloud strategy frequently includes a cloud-based disaster recovery plan. This plan involves housing systems and data in a private cloud and backing up that infrastructure on a public cloud. If a disaster strikes, the organization can quickly and smoothly move workloads to the public cloud with minimal disruption and continue running business applications.
- Development and testing (dev/test): A hybrid cloud environment offers clear advantages for developing and testing applications as there is no need to purchase and set up on-premises physical hardware. DevOps teams frequently use public cloud platforms and other services, such as cloud storage, to host development projects.
- Cloud bursting: Cloud bursting is a hybrid cloud deployment technique that allows external workloads to burst to external third-party cloud services when a private cloud has reached 100% capacity. This technique helps avoid interruption to business applications during sudden workload surges and reduces capital expenditures tied to on-premises infrastructure costs.
- Edge computing: Edge computing is a distributed computing framework that places computer workloads as close as possible to data sources. A modern hybrid cloud strategy combined with edge computing creates a seamless end-to-end solution that allows for the flexibility to run applications in private or public data centers.
