Hybrid infrastructure continues to gain popularity as more businesses require increased flexibility and performance for data-intensive applications. The ability to connect unique environments, such as cloud or dedicated servers, allows IT organizations and developers to meet the demands of large-scale deployments in a cost-effective manner.
To achieve the flexibility and performance benefits of hybrid infrastructure, many organizations choose to build their infrastructure with a variety of services from multiple vendors. Over time, the combination of disparate solutions can become exceedingly difficult to manage. Without the ability to logically provision and monitor machines, the risk of operational inefficiencies rises, and managing a patchwork of different solutions becomes overly complex and inhibits scalability.
Creating a best-fit hybrid infrastructure
Hybridized hosting environments offer significant benefits, enabling businesses to leverage the best solution for their needs. For example, public cloud provides on-demand provisioning of cloud servers with no upfront capital commitments, allowing users to scale capacity up and down in response to changes in demand. However, physical servers dedicated to the application in hosting environments often deliver better performance for data-intensive applications. Additionally, security-sensitive workloads are frequently hosted within a colocation facility where servers, storage and networking can be precisely customized to deliver maximum security and application efficiency.
By connecting physical environments that reside in colocation or hosting venues with cloud, companies can fully leverage legacy IT investments while improving the performance, security, and cost efficiency of hosted applications.
Beyond the cloud
While the term “hybrid” is commonly used to describe a mix of different cloud deployment models, it has expanded to include different infrastructure environments as well. But the lack of a universally accepted definition of hybridization makes it difficult for companies to accurately evaluate the many “hybrid” solutions available from service providers today.
Hybridization defined
Ultimately, hybridization is about finding the right mix of infrastructure environments to meet your application needs. Our white paper, Deciphering Hybrid Infrastructure, suggests an expanded definition of hybridization and addresses some common misinterpretations of the term. By connecting physical environments that reside in colocation or hosting venues with cloud, companies can fully leverage legacy IT investments while improving the performance, security, and cost efficiency of hosted applications.
