8 Things You Need to Know About Hybrid Cloud Computing Models

The recent rise in cloud adoption rates means it’s more important than over to discover which cloud computing model best fits your organization. Cloud computing consultants are becoming a valuable resource as businesses are searching for better solutions.

Hybrid clouds offer the combined benefits of public and private cloud computing models in an environment designed to meet the specific needs of your company. While this model offers flexibility and added benefits, cloud computing consulting may help you to decide for yourself which cloud computing model fits your unique needs.

A recent report on the hybrid cloud by SolarWinds IT Trends shared these important factors:

• 62% of respondents said security is the biggest challenge of managing current hybrid IT environments.

• 27% think their IT departments have adequate resources to manage a hybrid IT environment.

• 56% say they have the level of support they need from leadership and the overall organization to improve or develop skills to manage hybrid environments better.

The top five skills needed to manage hybrid IT environments are:

o   Distributed architectures
o   Service-oriented architectures
o   Application migration
o   Hybrid IT monitoring/management tools and metrics
o   Automation and vendor management

These factors are valuable and align closely with our eight factors for knowing if a hybrid cloud computing model is best for your organization.

1. Beginning Investment – The investment for each deployment option can vary. On an earlier blog, we offered a comprehensive financial comparison of public and private cloud computing deployments. This included the expected ROI to better understand how your initial IT investment will pay for itself over time.
2. Length of Data Storage – How long do you store data? Is your industry required to store data for specific time periods?
3. Data Storage Space – How much data will you store in the cloud? Public clouds make you pay per GB. With private cloud computing, you need to invest in your own resources.
4. Performance – What needs do you have for your IT infrastructure and how well should it be done? If cloud computing is a core, critical resource, your options should be weighed accordingly.
5. Confidentiality and Security – Data security can vary across deployment options.
6. Access Patterns and Locations – Is your business global? This could determine where to locate resources for best performance.
7. In-House Technical Resources – Are in-house technical resources available to manage private cloud computing?
8. Service Level Agreements – How critical is “uptime” for your business? How could a cloud outage affect your organization?

As with any IT decisions affecting the whole company, it’s important to choose wisely. Cloud computing consulting may be the answer you’re looking for. Work with cloud computing consultants to make sure you choose the best solution for your organization.