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A hybrid cloud is an information communication technology (ICT) architecture that integrates services from one or more cloud service providers with in-house IT infrastructure. The architecture is supported by standards that facilitate data and application portability.
Hybrid cloud architectures allow organizations to quickly scale information technology (IT) resources up or down in response to changing business requirements. For example, an e-commerce vendor might purchase additional cloud resources on demand to handle anticipated traffic spikes during the holiday season. Using cloud services reduces the need for the vendor to purchase less flexible and more costly infrastructure.
A hybrid cloud approach is well-suited for organizations that want to take advantage of the scale and security a public cloud provider can offer, while also allowing sensitive data to be kept such as on-premises to comply with residency laws for data sovereignty.
Techopedia Explains Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid cloud deployments can consist of any combination of public, private and on-premise infrastructures.
Hybrid cloud benefits
One of the primary benefits of hybrid cloud is agility. A hybrid cloud architecture will allow an organization to try out and potentially phase in new technologies without spending a lot of money. This type of architecture can also be used to replace expensive, outdated legacy systems in a cost-effective manner. Other advantages of a hybrid cloud approach include:
Scalability – administrators can purchase more services on-demand or automatically burst resources at run-time to ensure optimal performance and reliability.
Low cost – a hybrid environment minimizes the need for customers to pay for computing resources until they are being used.
Workflow management – hybrid cloud services can be integrated with local services to enable integrated management across both environments.
Edge support – a hybrid cloud architecture can accommodate edge computing because it allows organizations to use compute resources that are geographically close to the devices generating data.
Hybrid cloud management
Hybrid cloud management is the process of integrating and controlling an organization’s multiple cloud service deployments in order to avoid cloud waste.
This can be implemented through open source orchestration tools or dedicated third-party software that features a single management platform for both cloud and local assets. The management portal allows an administrator to provision or decommission instances, assign content, and view performance metrics through a single user interface (UI).
