For some years now, we have all become accustomed to using the word cloud, cloud this, cloud that, upload it to the cloud, send it to me via the cloud, I have no more space in the cloud… However, if we talk about the cloud as a storage system, we have to talk about the different types of cloud that we have at our disposal.
On one hand, we have the public cloud , the cloud used by all users who store their data on external servers like Google, Dropbox, iCloud, and OneDrive. On the other hand, we have the private cloud , clouds that are available to a single company, which manages and maintains them physically without depending on other companies.
But we also have another type of cloud, called a hybrid cloud , which, as its name suggests, is a combination of both. The hybrid cloud combines the advantages of the public cloud with the private cloud, sharing data and applications.
This type of cloud is ideal for companies that occasionally experience high workloads and for whom investing in their own servers for such a short period of time is not worthwhile, since the investment required is not exactly cheap.
What is hybrid cloud
Thanks to the hybrid cloud, companies have the storage capacity offered by the public cloud at very attractive prices without having to make significant investments to cope with occasional peak demand , which require equipment and resources that some companies cannot afford, in addition to the immediacy when contracting them, so it is usually a fantastic solution for small companies that are starting out and that are mainly, although not exclusively, related to the internet.
In this way, companies that occasionally need greater storage capacity can quickly and easily expand their resources without making significant investments that they may not be able to recoup in the future, through platforms such as Microsoft Azure , Amazon AWS , Google Cloud , and OpenStack.
These platforms offer customers a pre-configured VPN to ensure that data transmission between the private cloud and the public cloud is completely secure , as it is end-to-end encrypted, so absolutely no one who might have access to that data during transmission (highly unlikely) will be able to decrypt its contents quickly or easily.
All these services allow the client to specify what type of data is stored on public servers. This way, they can use their own servers to store confidential data and the rest of the information in the public cloud, freeing up space and resources on their servers that can be used for other purposes.
As we can see, the hybrid cloud offers us the best of both types of clouds.
Hybrid cloud features
Lower cost
The main advantage of using a hybrid cloud is cost. Expanding the number of servers dedicated to managing and storing data involves a significant expense , which is associated with hiring more staff for maintenance and, in a one-off situation, can lead to substantial losses for the company.
Scalability
Another advantage it offers, especially when dealing with older servers, is both horizontal and vertical scalability, as it allows us to exponentially increase our company's productivity by being based on the cloud and not on physical servers, which in turn require maintenance, larger facilities... which is related to the previous section.
Flexibility
By allowing us to rent the space we need for a specific period, we can delve into different projects without fear of the initial investment that would be involved in increasing our physical servers, as long as they are scalable, since otherwise, we would be forced to start practically from scratch.
Security
We can configure the hybrid cloud to store the most sensitive data in the private cloud and the rest in the public cloud. Of course, the cloud servers we contract will most likely be much more secure than the private cloud we might have in our company, but this option is always useful for the more cautious and distrustful.
Hybrid cloud usage examples
This type of cloud can be found in many sectors such as healthcare and finance thanks to the cost reduction and scalability they offer. These sectors store in the private cloud the most sensitive data such as medical and banking records of their clients while the rest of the generic information is stored in public clouds, which allows them to have a much faster network and benefit from the management of computing that They offer us.
Best hybrid cloud services
AWS (Amazon Web Services)
The world's most widely used cloud storage service, primarily by businesses, with a 40% market share. Dropbox, Foursquare, and Hootsuite are some of the companies that use this platform.
Microsoft Azure
The most popular storage service among businesses is Microsoft's Azure, one of the tech giant's fastest-growing services in recent years. A good example of its effectiveness is the recently launched xCloud, Microsoft's game streaming service.
Google Cloud
In third position, but no less important, we find Google's storage platform, ideal for complex computing needs , a field in which Google has focused a significant part of its efforts in recent years.
OpenStack
Another platform they offer is OpenStack, a cloud computing project associated with free and open-source software . Being free software doesn't mean it's completely free of charge. Some of OpenStack's clients include Huawei, Cisco, Dell, Ericsson, HP, IBM, and Yahoo, among others.
If you want to learn about the history of how cloud computing came about and the motivations that led Amazon to create the first service aimed at everyone (not just businesses), I invite you to take a look at this article.