Hybrid cloud is an IT hosting strategy in which two or more public and private cloud resources contribute separately to the performance and/or data storage needs of a service or application.
What do I need to know about hybrid clouds?
Hybrid clouds combine cloud resources designed for a single organization with multi-tenant or public cloud resources into a single, functional service platform. Hybrid clouds are growing in popularity because they allow organizations to reap the cost benefits of a public cloud infrastructure while giving greater options for customization and privacy/security via a private cloud. In this way, hybrid clouds offer the best of both worlds.
What is the difference between a public and a private cloud?
A public cloud is hosted infrastructure that is shared among a service provider’s customers. Popular public cloud providers include Amazon and Microsoft. Private clouds use the same flexible cloud architecture and can be either hosted or located on premises. However, they are designed only for use by a single organization. There are no shared compute resources in the cloud.
A hybrid cloud combines some aspects from each of these two types of clouds.
What are hybrid clouds used for?
Hybrid clouds can be used for anything you like, but they are most popular in situations where there are extreme low latency requirements or privacy and compliance requirements that make a public cloud a poor choice. For example, financial institutions often use a hybrid cloud, transacting trade orders on a private cloud while performing analytics on a public cloud.
What are the benefits of a hybrid cloud?
A hybrid cloud allows the company to deploy a service or application quickly, scale it smoothly as demand changes, locate it optimally, and still keep sensitive data more secure and private.