Debunking 7 Common Myths About Hybrid Clouds

Overcoming common myths and misconceptions about hybrid clouds can give organizations a big boost in implementing their adoption strategies.

In a hybrid cloud environment, data can stay on-premises and be accessed over secure networks with caching to hide latency to the cloud. Therefore, data does not always have to move to the cloud; it can stay on premises and be shared with cloud compute resources.

This myth comes from a fear of poor performance, high latency and resource outages in the cloud. Hybrid cloud technology exists that clusters to scale performance, caches to hide latency, and provides high availability to continue to operate through outages.

Modern hybrid cloud environments are dynamic, allowing for heterogeneous, on-premises resources as well as multiple cloud providers. Data can be easily migrated between on-premises and cloud or even cloud and cloud, freeing organizations to strategically use resources in a manner right for the business and use case.

While the cloud does use Web communication protocols rather than NAS and storage-area network (SAN) protocols common in many applications, rewriting is unnecessary. Hybrid clouds should include translation from NAS and SAN protocols to cloud protocols and provide full functionality, including read, write and metadata operations.

Like many myths, this one stems primarily from a fear of the unknown and a sense of lack of control. Actual data does not support this myth, as the cloud providers demonstrate their ability to manage security well. Hybrid clouds, however, should include technology that encrypts your data and puts you in control of the encryption keys. In some industries, security certifications provide confidence in a vendor meeting standards.

While more options of where to locate your data may seem more difficult, the cloud is actually simplifying IT for many organizations. A key to boosting simplicity is including technology that allows administrators to manage, move and analyze data across the infrastructure from one place. Global namespace technology is a good example of how companies are simplifying hybrid cloud data management. In addition, the cloud eliminates a good percentage of the hardware that needs to be managed and maintained.

While initial investments may seem shocking, an analysis can reveal savings. When looking at cost, one should consider savings related to data center operational expenses like power, cooling, maintenance and space, as well as avoidable capital expenses like hardware overhauls. With the cloud, you pay only for what you use, when you use it; you aren’t buying and maintaining equipment that isn’t always in use. In an optimal hybrid cloud architecture, you’ll want to include technology that takes advantage of nearline or archival storage cloud offerings that are inexpensive today and will only get less costly.