The team at microsoft Azure described hybrid cloud as the “best of all possible worlds” for delivering the benefits of cloud computing with the lowest possible risk of data exposure, yet two-in-three businesses operating a hybrid cloud got there by growing their private and public clouds separately.
If you asked fifty people to describe the “best of all possible worlds”, you would likely get a selection of replies in which the respondents’ favorite teams won the Super Bowl and World Series every year. However, if you were to ask Microsoft the same question, the reply would be quite different because what Microsoft considers to be the best of all possible worlds is the hybrid cloud model.
According to the Microsoft website, the hybrid cloud model is the best because it delivers all the benefits of cloud computing — flexibility, scalability, and cost efficiency — with the lowest possible risk of data exposure. However, that is not necessarily the outcome for all businesses — especially those who fail to plan ahead and develop a cloud migration strategy.
The definition of a hybrid cloud model
In Microsoft’s “best of all worlds” definition of a hybrid cloud model, a hybrid cloud is a computing environment that combines a public cloud and an on-premises IT infrastructure to share data and applications. Most industry analyst definitions are similar, stating that a hybrid cloud is comprised of a public cloud and a private cloud, “with some integration between the two”. VMware takes the definition a little further by saying that a hybrid cloud also features common infrastructure and consistent operations. Regardless of definition, a hybrid cloud model allows an enterprise to keep mission critical, sensitive applications on-premises and deploy cloud-native and less sensitive workloads to public clouds – all while achieving optimal cost efficiency and deployment flexibility for both..
Too often, it does not work like that. In a previous blog about hybrid cloud adoption, we noted only a third of businesses develop a cloud migration strategy before migrating applications to a hybrid cloud.That is not because other businesses are doing it wrong, it is because there is no one-size-fits-all hybrid cloud model.
Why different hybrid cloud models exist
Different hybrid cloud models exist because businesses have contrasting motives for migrating workloads to a hybrid cloud environment and also different starting points. So, whereas Microsoft’s definition of a hybrid cloud model may be suitable for some businesses, others may wish to focus on developing new lines of businesses in the cloud while leaving existing lines of business on-premises. It might also be the reason businesses have legacy IT infrastructures that are not compatible with cloud computing.
Indeed, the level of refactoring required to make on-premises workloads suitable for the cloud can have a significant impact on how a business migrates to the cloud and what type of hybrid cloud model it adopts. For businesses able to take a “lift-and-shift” approach, the migration process can be seamless and inexpensive. However, if existing applications require significant refactoring before being cloud-ready, the additional time and cost might mean a different type of hybrid cloud model is required.
How to find the right hybrid cloud model for your business
In our webinar “The 4 Questions to Ask before Migrating to the Cloud”, we recommend mapping a hybrid cloud model that answers the questions:
- What is my ideal end state?
- Which workloads should I migrate first?
- What is my migration strategy?
- What will my technical architecture look like in the public cloud?
Answers to the first question will vary according to each business’s starting point and their motives for migrating to a hybrid cloud, The answers to questions two, three, and four can be found by taking advantage of CloudHealth’s migration assessment capabilities; which provide a detailed assessment of how much a particular workload or set of applications will cost to run in a public cloud. It can compare costs across multiple cloud providers and even factor in cost differences in regions and availability zones. ClludHealth’s migration assessment can give you a configuration based “lift and shift” migration assessment, or it can provide a performance-based assessment based on disk, memory, and CPU metrics of your on-premises workload. It can also include the purchase of committed use discounts so you get an optimized and accurate picture of how much it will cost to run a workload in different public clouds. This visibility, analysis, and planning helps cloud operations, DevOps, and architecture teams make better, more informed decisions about hybrid cloud deployments.
