Why Choose the Hybrid Cloud Over Full Cloud Migration
The era of the hybrid cloud and how to lead a successful migration.
The benefits of cloud computing are clear, but companies are increasingly opting for a hybrid cloud approach for a variety of reasons. Jozef de Vries of EDB explores why most companies prefer the hybrid cloud route to transformation as opposed to full cloud migration.
The cloud market was valued at a staggering $545.8 billion last year. It’s no wonder: The benefits of cloud computing are hard to ignore for companies looking to scale without taking on the additional burden of IT expansion and overhead. And thanks to trends like remote work, cloud adoption has skyrocketed.
Despite the cloud’s impressive growth and popularity, many companies are choosing a hybrid approach instead of going all-in on the cloud. Let’s take a deeper look at the primary reasons some companies are staggering their cloud investments and the top considerations for doing so.
Results Have Fallen Short
Gartner research indicates that through 2024, approximately 60 percent of infrastructure and operations leaders will grapple with unexpected public cloud costs that adversely affect their on-premises financial allocations. Since cloud’s inception, there has been a false notion that companies can simply take their on-premises applications or database systems, throw them into containers in the cloud, and have everything run efficiently and cheaply; this is sometimes called “lift and shift.”
But in reality, the cloud is only as beneficial as you make it. Getting it right requires careful consideration and up-front investment to gain the efficiency and eventual cost savings most organizations seek. Many companies that hastily moved workloads to the cloud have found that it’s not paying off in the ways they expected. Thankfully, not all is lost: organizations can right the ship by carefully assessing which workloads should run in the cloud and which are ideal for on-premises (more on this later).
Security Requirements Vary for Different Workloads
For other companies, the decision to maintain or switch to a hybrid environment is largely driven by the type of workload itself. Industries dealing with highly sensitive data – think financial institutions with banking information or healthcare organizations with patient data – often adopt a hybrid cloud model to address varying regulatory or corporate policies.
According to Gartner’s 2023 CIO and Technology Executive Agenda, information security remains a top concern for IT decision-makers. This can raise debate about whether the cloud is less secure than the on-premises environments these workloads run in today. While the cloud is arguably just as secure, there are both human and technical factors at play: technical areas can be improved, and perceptions about cloud security can still change over time.
See More: How NaaS Eliminates the Complexity of Business in the Cloud
More Control Is Desired
Additionally, some companies want to maintain a higher level of administrative control and oversight than the cloud will allow for, down to the operating system (OS) and hardware levels. When a company moves to the cloud, it most often has to relinquish some—or all—of this control since they are no longer the hosting provider making the rules. And while some cloud vendors are starting to expose this level of access, the model is still in its infancy.
The State of Hybrid Cloud Security in 2023 report by Gartner found that 45 percent of organizations are adopting a hybrid cloud strategy and that governance and compliance are the top concerns for organizations that are using hybrid cloud. Many organizations have thoughtfully constructed governance models for their on-premises environments over the course of many years, and they become part of the business’ operational DNA. A hybrid might be a better fit when a high level of control is desired but irreplicable in a cloud environment. This way, the organization can enjoy the cost-savings and scalability of the cloud while also enjoying the granular level of control that is only possible with on-premises.
But transitioning from a cloud-first strategy to a hybrid doesn’t come without challenges. Companies need to be very intentional about which workloads go where and ensure they have the time and resources necessary to make these changes.
Determine Which Workloads Will Go Where
According to the 2023 Hybrid Cloud Survey by Flexera, 53 percent of organizations note migration complexity as a top barrier to hybrid cloud adoption. Migrating applications to or from the cloud is no small feat, and organizations need to assign the right workloads to the right environment to avoid wasting time and resources. The key is properly assessing which applications are worth the time, effort, and resources required to move to the cloud and which are best suited for an on-premises environment.
For example, it doesn’t make sense to reconfigure and move a 20-year-old on-premises database to the cloud when the time and effort required would be greater than the return. This is especially true if the applications transacting with that database system are not undergoing meaningful changes. Organizations should thoroughly analyze all of their eligible application stacks to determine which will perform optimally in the cloud. A solid, data-backed strategy regarding which workloads go where is critical to getting the most out of a hybrid approach.
Consider the Level of Effort and Resources Involved
Moving workloads around requires considerable effort, and companies transitioning to hybrid will encounter the inverse of the challenges they experienced when they moved to the cloud initially. For instance, if an organization moved several applications to the cloud, de-provisioned its hardware, and reduced IT staff accordingly, bringing everything back on-premises will take a similar amount of time, effort, and money.
There will also now be the added challenge of maintaining consistency when it comes to governance across the new hybrid environment, which can take up additional time and resources. Organizations should prepare by having a plan in place to account for the extra support they may need when switching to a hybrid model.
Both cloud-first and hybrid approaches have their respective benefits and challenges, and no one solution is better than the other. If an organization didn’t obtain the results it desired from the cloud originally, there’s no promise that hybrid will be a silver bullet. The onus is on companies to explore and implement the best solution for their needs. Oftentimes, when executed properly, hybrid hits the mark for organizations who want the flexibility of the cloud with the added security and governance that’s only possible with on-premises infrastructure.
Do you think the hybrid cloud offers more flexibility and easier governance? Share with us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
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