What is Hybrid Cloud storage?
Cloud storage has evolved in recent years and as businesses attempt to strike a balance between having all of their Managed IT Services on premises and offloading storage and computing to the Cloud, a middle ground has since emerged called the Hybrid Cloud. The Hybrid Cloud uses a mix of on-premises private Cloud and third party public Cloud services with orchestration between the two platforms.
In this middle ground, Hybrid Cloud computing is a mixed environment whereby there is a combination of private and public Cloud environments that are used. Businesses are now realising that in order to meet both their own and customer’s needs, they may require different types of cloud storage services to benefit their own and their customers growing business.
The Hybrid Cloud benefits businesses who are not ready to move their entire IT Operations into the public Cloud. They deliver additional flexibility and scalability to businesses who currently employ private Clouds, but also require the additional on-demand scalability and added security in response to unexpected surges in business workload at recurring times of peak data usage.
Hybrid Cloud benefits for businesses
The Hybrid Cloud benefits businesses by giving them greater flexibility and more data deployment options than other methods such as premise or private Cloud and is particularly valuable for dynamic and highly changeable workloads. This method of computing can also offer increased security for the businesses utilising it and by leveraging the public cloud in times of heavy usage, your business can experience fewer outages and less downtime.
Scalability
The Hybrid Cloud benefits businesses of every size and stores your most sensitive data on dedicated hardware while simultaneously benefiting from the public Cloud’s cost efficiency and on-demand scalability. It can also prove to be much more secure and cost effective than traditional methods such as an on-premise server that needs more frequent updates.
Digital Transformation
Many agile businesses are adapting Hybrid Cloud solutions as part of their Digital Transformation strategy. The Hybrid Cloud benefits businesses who need flexibility for the future. Hybrid Cloud Computing lets you match your actual data management requirements to the private Cloud, public Cloud or your on-premises resources that are best able to handle them. Additionally, the hybrid cloud has contributed the success of the modern workplace.
Security
Security is also a major advantage to using a Hybrid Cloud Computing system as protected, confidential and sensitive information can be stored on the private Cloud while still being able to leverage resources to the public Cloud to run apps that rely on your data. 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, while publicly-accessible data and applications can be accessed through a public server. With Hybrid Cloud Computing, stability is at its most reliable as certain functions are still accessible on-site as businesses insulate themselves from network failures.
Speed
Data speeds are also increased as Hybrid Cloud networks can be configured to push essential data through private servers instead of public ones which 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 maximum flexibility to explore new products and business models. As your business needs continue to change, the development team within the business can benefit from having a private environment in which to build and test new software without having to dramatically rearrange the IT resources or architecture within the business are to capacity
As a Microsoft Gold partner, Infinity Group provide Microsoft Azure hybrid and private Cloud storage solutions which provides Cloud technology as 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, greatly improves business efficiency as well as using integrated data services, advanced analytics and developer tools. All of these services hosted within Microsoft’s public Cloud 30 and secure and growing data centres in the UK, ensuring your data remains local and not in another country.
Infinity Group are Cloud Computing specialists. If you are keen to find out more about Hybrid Cloud storage solutions making Microsoft Azure part of your Outsourced IT Support please get in touch.