What is hybrid cloud?

Hybrid cloud refers to a combination of at least 2 computing environments that share information and run a uniform series of applications for a business or enterprise. Those environments may include:

• At least 1 private cloud and at least 1 public cloud.
• 2 or more private clouds.
• 2 or more public clouds.
• 1 bare-metal (physical hardware) or virtual environment connected to at least 1 cloud.

Read the e-book: Hybrid Cloud Strategy for Dummies

The term "cloud" describes a network of on-demand computing resources accessed over the internet. This ecosystem facilitates the delivery and exchange of computing services such as data storage, software applications, analytics, and intelligence tools.

The rise of hybrid cloud as a concept reflects how the distinctions between traditional types of clouds are increasingly becoming blurred. Early public and private clouds were distinguished by location and ownership. Public clouds were run off-premise by third-party providers and private clouds were run locally by the party using the services. Today’s cloud types are far more complex because location and ownership considerations are changing rapidly.

For example, public clouds used to run only off-premise, but public cloud providers are now running cloud services using their clients’ on-premise datacenters. Private clouds used to run on-premise only, but organizations are now building private clouds on rented, vendor-owned datacenters located off-premises. Regardless of the physical location, when clouds are combined, we call that a multicloud or hybrid cloud environment.

A multicloud strategy works by treating different clouds as totally separate platforms, each with their own set of applications and management.

A hybrid cloud strategy promotes workload portability–which means that applications work consistently across different environments, allowing a single computing platform to span across and communicate with multiple clouds. All hybrid cloud environments should:

• Connect multiple computers through a network.
• Consolidate IT resources into a single pool.
• Scale out and quickly supply new resources.
• Be able to move workloads between environments.
• Incorporate a single, unified management tool.
• Orchestrate processes with the help of automation.

As cloud computing continues to evolve and usage increases, many enterprises may find themselves accidentally operating within a hybrid cloud infrastructure. How does this happen?

There are a lot of cloud service providers out there, often referred to as “hyperscalers,” including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. Each provider offers a unique set of benefits that appeal to different types of users. Perhaps a company acquires another organization that uses a different cloud environment. Or maybe teams within the same company opt for different providers based on their individual needs.

From these multicloud beginnings, organizations are compelled to integrate their disparate applications to provide customers with better service, new features, or faster response times. As the applications running in different clouds become more interconnected, companies find themselves stepping into hybrid cloud environments out of necessity.

There are benefits to choosing providers and services based on your business needs. Many companies are moving to cloud environments because they need to build applications faster. A company may find that one provider offers a superior email suite while another provides higher security measures for processing customer data.

While there’s nothing wrong with using multiple providers to get what you need, it’s important to consider that each of these clouds have different protocols and require different skill sets. If your team is tasked with learning and memorizing multiple systems, or building applications twice (once on-premise and again in a cloud environment), you risk creating division, repetition, and inefficiency, which can hurt your bottom line.

Alternatively, with a hybrid approach, your team can focus on learning 1 system to manage your entire portfolio of software services. This allows for a more collaborative work environment, a lower cognitive load for your team members, and higher levels of consistency and efficiency overall.

The way you organize your cloud resources and build your hybrid cloud will be as unique as a fingerprint. Different companies offer different solutions, and there's no one-size-fits-all model for cloud architecture. 

Modern IT teams build hybrid clouds by focusing on developing and deploying apps as collections of small, independent, and loosely coupled services. Without a consistent approach, lack of harmony between differing services and platforms can create redundancy, inefficiency, excessive spending, and above all, confusion. 

Application and data integration are critical for modern business. In order to stay competitive, the applications and devices at the core of your business strategy must be accessible to each other.

You can achieve a consistent computing environment by managing your interconnected cloud resources using a unified orchestration platform. This means that teams can worry less about maintaining systems and focus more on building useful products.

A hybrid cloud uses some of the same fundamental technologies as standalone public clouds or private clouds:

• Networking and/or application programming interfaces (APIs) connect multiple computers.
• Virtualization, containers, or software-defined storage abstract resources, which can be pooled.
• Management software allocates those resources into environments where applications can run, which are then provisioned on-demand.

Separate clouds become hybrid when those environments are connected as seamlessly as possible. That interconnectivity is how hybrid clouds work—and it’s why hybrid clouds are the foundation of edge computing. Interconnectivity makes it possible to move workloads, unify management, and orchestrate processes. How well-developed those connections are has a direct impact on how well your hybrid cloud works.

Find out how to connect your hybrid cloud environment with IT automation

Hybrid cloud management is how administrators control—and orchestrate—all the products and services that operate in a hybrid environment: users and access control, data, applications, and services. Administrators need to be able to access the resources they need, automate the processes they want to, and make adjustments as needed—while also monitoring usage and cost. Admins should also maintain flexibility and scalability so they can adapt quickly to change.

Deciding which public and private clouds are right for each workload is a complex issue, and what seems to be the right choice today won’t always be the best solution tomorrow. If you want to evaluate a multicloud strategy in the future, for example, or push deployments out to your network’s edge, it’s important that your software solutions don’t limit future options.

Responding to the constant pace of innovation requires that organizations stay flexible to develop and deploy applications wherever it makes the most sense—on-premise, in public clouds, across multiple clouds, or at the edge. This demands a consistent, flexible platform that works across every environment you choose—and with services like integration, data, and analytics—to enable the different applications you release. The management plan must also take security among systems into consideration. A platform-centric approach to management will help you maintain the pace of innovation without disruption. A consistent hybrid cloud management platform delivers the flexibility, security controls, and stability organizations need to maintain time-to-value.

In a hybrid cloud environment, some of the platforms organizations run workloads on may be outdated or unsupported. This situation creates complexity and security risks, and decreases efficiency. Developers may also be using application development platforms and tools that may not meet the security and compliance requirements of the operations teams. 

Security gaps may also arise from human error when navigating too many manual processes in different cloud or on-premise systems. These human mistakes can create downtime and misconfigurations that lead to security vulnerabilities. Developing applications too fast can also disrupt existing operations and leave systems exposed to risk. 

New regulatory compliance challenges are also arising as some organizations operating in hybrid cloud environments face government and commercial security standards that impact their ability to move workloads. In some countries and regions and in highly regulated industries (such as government, healthcare, and banking), new and emerging requirements will mean organizations that deal with sensitive data have to comply with the demands of sovereign cloud—a cloud that is built or operates in a particular country or geographical region. Organizations will be held accountable for their own data security regardless of the cloud environment, which will require strategic measures for consistent security policies, access control, data protection, data storage, and threat intelligence.

Read the e-book: Boost Hybrid Cloud Security

AI

A key motivation for organizations to consider their hybrid cloud strategy is the increase of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) solutions for faster decision-making. Organizations are using AI to differentiate themselves from competitors, keep pace with rapidly evolving customer demands, and deliver more efficient experiences and better business outcomes. Challenges arise when organizations start experimenting with AI, including model cost, alignment complexity, and deployment constraints. A consistent hybrid approach can increase efficiency, enhance accessibility, and provide flexibility to deploy anywhere AI-enabled applications are running.

Watch this Strategy Snack: Your AI strategy starts with a hybrid cloud strategy

Application migration

A hybrid cloud approach helps support migration to the public cloud because it allows organizations to take advantage of the cost savings and agility benefits of public cloud services while maintaining on-premise infrastructure to meet specific application, workload, security, or compliance demands. Migrating a large quantity of on-premise applications to a public cloud or new system can be extremely time-consuming. Hybrid cloud can mitigate the impact of application migration times because you can create a hybrid environment to support migration and use a consistent operational environment while applications are being migrated to minimize downtime and maintain business continuity. A hybrid cloud approach also delivers tools and resources that are standardized, delivered with security, and aligned with organizational processes.

Data residency and geographic expansion

Some companies encounter challenges related to geographical regulations around where and how data is stored, and some applications have data residency requirements. For multinational companies in highly regulated industries, data sovereignty is a critical concern that impacts the use of particular cloud providers or multiple clouds, and the viability of moving on-premise systems to a public cloud. For many organizations, a hybrid approach is necessary to comply with regulations that govern where specific data can be stored. 

Disaster recovery

A hybrid approach helps organizations scale resources efficiently, recover from failures, and continue critical applications in the event of site outages and other disasters. With measures in place such as data redundancy and backup, failover orchestration procedures, and flexibility to use the elasticity of cloud resources, a streamlined hybrid cloud approach can mitigate the impacts of disasters and help an organization recover faster and with minimal downtime. 

Edge computing

Edge computing continues to gain momentum as organizations consider how to support infrastructure and applications outside of centralized datacenters and closer to where data is generated. As organizations move towards digital-first processes and operations, computing resources become more distributed. Organizations are investing in edge computing to implement new digital features and operations, create new customer experiences, and expand business to new regions, among other reasons. 

A hybrid cloud strategy is essential to deploying and operating edge applications; edge devices have many variables and may be deployed on a wide range of hardware and software systems. Organizations operating edge sites need a management strategy that supports interoperability to handle the scalability of edge deployments and deliver applications successfully across devices. 

The greatest benefit of a hybrid cloud strategy is the ability to choose the optimal solution for each task or workload. Even if you aren’t currently evaluating hybrid cloud, it can become a necessity for many organizations as they grow. For instance, you might use on-premise infrastructure to store sensitive data and public cloud services for application development. You might use multiple public cloud vendors to meet a variety of local regulations, or shift workloads from one provider to another based on pricing and demand. You may want to invest in an edge computing strategy to distribute greater compute and storage power closer to data sources and users in your network. A consistent platform running portable workloads can support these choices now and in the future.

Red Hat® can help you address a range of challenges in migrating to hybrid cloud, including handling security issues, preparing for future changes that may impact the business, and creating consistent operations across hybrid environments. Red Hat provides orchestration, workload portability, certified enterprise software, integrated support, and an ecosystem of partners and services that help you meet these challenges confidently and efficiently.

A standardized operating environment like Red Hat Enterprise Linux® reduces the complexity of maintenance, patching, and compliance, for workloads across on-premise environments, the cloud, or at the edge. This enhances the security posture of your IT stack and reduces the time your teams spend on maintenance. With a consistent platform such as Red Hat OpenShift®, developers can innovate while operations maintain security protocols. Infrastructure and applications teams can more easily meet security requirements. With automation through Red Hat Ansible® Automation Platform, security teams don’t need different tools and processes for various environments, saving them time and effort and making it easier for them to audit their entire IT environment. Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat OpenShift, and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform are available on the major clouds and some are also available as managed options. 

No single cloud provider or on-premise environment has everything you want, and too often, proprietary solutions can restrict your choices and adaptability in the future. To enable the capability to adapt to change without costly rebuilding, your hybrid cloud should be built on a consistent foundation of open source code. Your operations, development, and security teams can build and manage a full IT stack in a standard, unifying platform that works on bare metal, virtual machines, private clouds, public clouds, and at the edge.

Use Red Hat OpenShift as a modern application platform for hybrid cloud environments