Hybrid infrastructure is the combination of cloud and on–premises resources to create a flexible and efficient system.
Features
The transition to a hybrid infrastructure provides companies with the following advantages:
- Load distribution. A pre-conducted IT audit within the organization identifies maximum and minimum loads, shows the relationship between computing resources, and finds vulnerabilities. In the future, the customer, based on the audit, transfers some of the services to the cloud, and leaves some on local equipment.
- Scalability. The presence of a cloud allows you to expand at any time, since local resources have limitations. For example, the current storage line of any vendor becomes obsolete in 3-5 years and it is quite difficult to update it.
- Backup. Creating backups is an integral part of any IT infrastructure. The customer can create backups locally and store them at least in two locations – in the cloud and inside the organization.
- The financial component. Transferring services to the cloud saves the company’s budget for maintenance and updating of the current fleet of equipment. Payment is made only for cloud rental.
- Disaster tolerance. The presence of two independent sites operating in parallel guarantees stable operation for companies even if one of them completely fails.
Hybrid cloud storage
Classification of infrastructure
Within any organization, all services and solutions can be divided into 4 conditional blocks.
The first category includes mission-critical applications and services. They have to work 24*7*365 and, if necessary, they are restored for a few seconds. The most advanced solutions and equipment are used for them.
The second block includes solutions that contain database management systems (DBMS). In this case, the DBMS is left locally on Hi-end hardware, and the application servers are moved to the cloud.
The third block represents virtual machines and systems. As a rule, they are not demanding of resources and work well in the cloud infrastructure.
The final part is the core of any infrastructure in the company. For example, DNS, AD, VPN, authentication service, etc. This block is responsible for the basic functions of any infrastructure. They must be duplicated and constantly available.
To properly break down the customer’s infrastructure into blocks, IT is necessary to conduct an IT audit. After that, some of the services and solutions migrate to the cloud, while the other part remains locally.
Hybrid infrastructure allows companies to minimize the risks and costs of their own infrastructure, and also increases the reliability and security of the organization’s services.