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3 Key Considerations for a Private and Hybrid Cloud Strategy

August 15, 2016 by Lore Marketing Team

Adopting a private or hybrid cloud strategy saves money and increases productivity for businesses. According to TechTarget, 67% of people report using private cloud because it saves money, while 57% say it increases productivity because it automates IT tasks. The survey also revealed that private and hybrid cloud users benefit from workload scalability and IT resource efficiency. The benefits of private and hybrid cloud are apparent, but there are still many businesses not using private or hybrid cloud.

In the same survey by TechTarget, 39% of respondents have not moved to a private or hybrid cloud. One of the most common reasons was the same as the reason to transition to the cloud – cost. Many IT executives fear the initial investment involved to transfer data to a private or hybrid cloud. However, they fail to understand that a solid private or hybrid cloud strategy can make transferring data quick and affordable.

The following strategy can help IT executives migrate to the cloud for less money with less stress.

Cutting Costs with Multiple, Affordable Hypervisors

Virtualization requires a hypervisor to transfer data. It’s what makes it possible to migrate data to a private cloud. It also serves as data protection, as data can become lost, damaged, or even hacked in the process of moving it to a secure private or hybrid cloud.

Hypervisors can be expensive, especially if they are not used correctly. Businesses can save a lot of money simply by seeking promotions on licensing and using several hypervisors instead of one that can handle the bulk of the data. What many IT professionals do not know is that hypervisors often come with a free trial. It is wise to try a few different ones in order to find out which ones meet your business’s needs. Most hypervisor vendors devise licensing schemes that need scrutinizing to understand all of the underlying costs. For instance, VMware separates their licenses, so users must purchase a license for each processor, and then another one for the vCenter Server management console. Users who want technical support must agree to pay another fee, which covers a year of support. All of these licenses can cost businesses a lot of money, so it is better to find a vendor with a reasonably priced license that covers all of your business’s needs when migrating data to the private or hybrid cloud.

Most businesses use multiple hypervisors because they like the peace of mind of having multiple ways of transferring data. Utilizing hypervisors from different vendors offers opportunities to negotiate with vendors on licensing agreements. Keeping options open with hypervisors is always the best, most cost effective option.

Integrating Data Management Techniques

IT professionals need to devise a strategy for data management. Failure to manage data efficiently could lead to bottlenecks and decrease private cloud or hybrid cloud performance. For instance, hybrid clouds must have an access point for data storage through private and public clouds. If security provisions, such as the wide area network (WAN), block or slow down the synchronizing of data, a bottleneck occurs. This will cause the hybrid cloud to lose functionality and cause a business to lose productivity.

It is imperative that IT professionals resolve the issues that come into play when using public and private clouds with hybrid. The challenges of transferring bulk data to public cloud safely, without interference from hackers, are great. Encrypting the data as it travels to the public cloud for syncing with the hybrid cloud can reduce the risk of data theft.

Large data transfers to the public cloud can be slow and a nightmare to organize. Sharding data is an option, as it partitions data into smaller chunks, which speeds up transfer. These chunks can all go to one server or multiple servers depending on the business’s needs. Jason Tee from The Server Side says, “In the simplest sense, sharding your database involves breaking up your big database into many, much smaller databases that share nothing and can be spread across multiple services.” Sharding can be a cost effective option for businesses on a tight budget, as long as it is used efficiently by managing the data correctly on multiple clouds.

Data management is critical when setting up and maintaining a hybrid cloud. The goal should be to devise a data transfer plan that ensures safety and reliability across all clouds. Once a plan is in place, businesses find the performance capabilities of the clouds pay back the initial investment many times over.

Hybrid Cloud Architecture

The architecture of the cloud must be flexible, agile and simple. IT professionals need to develop a conceptual architecture for workloads. To do this, IT professionals first must identify the business’s goals for using their private and hybrid cloud. The sequence in which data is stored can streamline the process of managing the data when needed. For example, the public cloud can be used to store non-sensitive data such as generic client forms, but when forms are completed with confidential information, the form can be saved in the private or hybrid cloud, depending on the preference of the business.

VMWare developed a basic outline of a hybrid cloud architecture to explain how this strategy works to simplify the use of the clouds.

As you can see in this flowchart, there are two users of the cloud – application owner and developer. Each uses the cloud in their own way, but it works for both parties. Considering the architecture of your private and hybrid cloud can be quite intense, as some organizations may need to set up a flow that works for many more than two users. Most businesses need IT professionals specializing in private and hybrid cloud architecture development to devise one that works. Lore Systems has the experience and skills to develop a private and hybrid cloud system that will work for all organizations at a reasonable price.

Contact us now for more information about we can help your organization transition to the private and hybrid cloud.