Is hybrid IT right for your business or organization? We’ll help you find out. Here are seven things to consider when starting your hybrid IT journey.
Have you been wondering what the hybrid IT hype is all about?
The hybrid IT concept is probably as clear as a muddy lake to many of you, but you must understand some hybrid IT basics; it’s the new IT, after all.
Here’s the most straightforward hybrid IT definition: a company combines their pre-existing, on-site IT infrastructures with private and public cloud-based technologies.
But what are private and public clouds? Let us explain.
Consider the analogy below to get a quick grasp of private and public clouds:
Private clouds are like the cars in your garage; they’re yours to use whenever, and you’re solely responsible for keeping them maintained whether you drive them or not.
Public clouds are like an Uber ride; you don’t own the car, you’re not responsible for their upkeep, and you only pay for the time you are in them.
A hybrid cloud combines your personal vehicles AND an Uber ride based on your unique needs.
Here are seven things to think about when considering a hybrid IT or hybrid cloud approach.
1. There’s a difference between hybrid cloud and hybrid IT.
Hybrid IT and hybrid cloud have a lot in common, but they’re not the same.
Here’s the most significant difference: hybrid cloud combines public and private cloud services only, whereas hybrid IT joins more traditional on-site IT infrastructures with private and public cloud services.
Of course, you can’t migrate some in-house legacy software systems to the cloud without an enormous technical and financial burden. In this case, organizations can mingle traditional IT systems with either private, public, or hybrid cloud computing deployments.
2. There are many hybrid IT benefits.
There are significant perks when you can manage a mix of traditional IT while leveraging public and private cloud-based services.
For starters, your organization can sidestep the time-consuming ordeal of migrating your legacy apps to the cloud. When you can navigate around this step, you eliminate costly disruptions and many legacy application security issues.
With hybrid IT, you can retain decades of IT investments and get the value out of your existing IT infrastructure and still tap into the many cloud services benefits – this an incredible perk for many companies.
Plus, your decades-old on-site data centers may contain sensitive data. With hybrid IT, you can efficiently control and manage this data. If you fully migrated to the cloud, your information is in the hands of a third-party cloud vendor.
Hybrid IT brings agility, scalability, control, efficiency, and expanded storage space to let companies maintain control of their data while adapting to constantly evolving business needs.
Not to mention the cost-effectiveness of utilizing cloud services.
3. There are some hybrid IT challenges.
Naturally, you can experience some frustrating challenges when managing on-premise infrastructures and the cloud.
Technological complexities increase exponentially with the introduction of hybrid IT infrastructures. Instead of overseeing an on-prem data center, you now have to manage a variety of IT infrastructures. This can be a challenging endeavor that may force you to hire experts versed in hybrid deployments.
Your shift to hybrid can also prove costly if you operate a small business, especially when you consider all your data can reside in the cloud at a more affordable price.
You also run the risk of cyberattacks, breaches, and intrusions on primary servers from neighboring environments when mingling clouds and on-site deployments.
Then, there’s the exponential risk of shadow IT – when people use cloud services without IT ever knowing.
4. Hybrid IT is the new approach to IT.
Cloud technology continues to grow at a rapid pace as businesses become increasingly digital.
Hybrid IT is appealing to companies who don’t want to outsource their IT entirely but want to take full advantage of cloud services’ flexibility.
Many organizations have already adopted and embraced the hybrid IT model (even if they don’t realize it), and the numbers continue to grow. Gartner predicts at least 75 percent of enterprises will adopt a hybrid IT model by the end of this year.
While it might not make sense (or be possible) for some companies to adopt hybrid IT, one thing is sure; as long as IT exists in a physical and virtual world, there will be a need for hybrid IT.
5. Hybrid IT might not be for you.
Every CIO strives for a perfect IT infrastructure, but “perfect” for one business might not be ideal for every business.
Scaling old technology is a challenging and slow process. And some organizations don’t have the energy or budget to get it done (or done right).
Upgrading and modernization legacy apps, including platforms and entire infrastructure architectures, could be too daunting for some organizations.
The overall costs of upgrading and maintaining a hybrid IT model might be considerably higher than if a company chose to stick with a hybrid cloud model.
Not all companies can dive into the cloud, and there might not be a pressing need for some organizations to incur the expenses of moving to a cloud infrastructure.
“A lot of people still run excellent virtualization infrastructures internally,” speculates analyst Lydia Leong with IT leaders group Gartner Research.
6. Here are four standard hybrid IT solutions.
Four primary cloud computing solutions run on public, private, and hybrid clouds: SaaS solutions, IaaS solutions, PaaS solutions, and FaaS solutions.
SaaS (Software-as-a-service) is one of the more popular forms of cloud computing. It’s a model where both the software and data are hosted in the cloud by third-party vendors and accessed from any device with an Internet connection. Products like Office 365, G Suite, Dropbox, and Zoom are all SaaS examples.
IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-service) is another form of cloud computing. IaaS type delivers essential, virtual computing resources to Internet users on a pay-as-you-go basis. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is an IaaS example.
PaaS (Platform-as-a-service) is a complete cloud development environment where developers provide users with tools (hardware, software, infrastructure) for creating, hosting, and deploying custom applications in a virtual place. Heroku and AWS Elastic Beanstalk are PaaS examples.
FaaS (Function-as-a-service) is a serverless cloud computing platform that offers customers a platform to develop, run, and maintain applications without building an entire infrastructure.
The ability to align specific solutions with specific needs based on each job is perfect for any IT decision-maker.
7. You might already be a hybrid.
Is your IT infrastructure 100% physical and on-site? Or is your IT 100% in the cloud? If you answered no to both, you’re a hybrid.
Most networks today are hybrid, meaning they use a combination of physical assets and private and public clouds.
While legacy systems and physical data centers aren’t going away anytime soon, they are slowly and surely becoming a thing of the past.
Most companies have begun to adopt a hybrid IT model whether they intended to or not. The average company uses around five different cloud platforms right now.
With the rapid growth in cloud-based applications and the need to manage emerging tech like the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, integration into a hybrid model is almost inevitable.
