A hybrid cloud is an IT infrastructure design that integrates a companys internal IT resources with third-party cloud provider infrastructure and services. It is a mixed computing environment where applications are run using a combination of computing, storage, and services in different environments, such as public clouds and on-premises infrastructure. Hybrid cloud solutions enable organizations to migrate and manage workloads between these various cloud environments, allowing them to create more versatile setups based on their specific business needs.
Hybrid cloud environments have several benefits, including:
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Agility: The primary benefit of a hybrid cloud is agility. Hybrid cloud solutions allow organizations to combine public clouds, private clouds, and on-premises resources to gain the agility they need for a competitive advantage.
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Cost-effectiveness: A hybrid cloud lets organizations move their workloads between different environments so they can scale in a cost-effective way.
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Flexibility: Hybrid cloud solutions provide organizations with greater flexibility and scalability than traditional on-premises storage infrastructure.
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Business continuity: Hybrid cloud storage can keep a replica of local data in the cloud for business continuity.
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Low-latency needs: Hybrid cloud solutions can be used to support low-latency applications that require immediate client and server communication with less than a second of lag time.
Hybrid cloud architectures require integration, orchestration, and coordination so that organizations can share, shift, and synchronize information quickly. A hybrid cloud approach is one of the most common infrastructure setups today, and cloud migrations often naturally lead to hybrid cloud implementations as organizations often have to transition applications and data slowly and systematically.