The days of storing everything on a single server are long gone. Instead, many organizations now run workloads across a range of environments, from private and public clouds to company servers and edge devices.

But how can you ensure consistency in your operations, monitoring, and security across these diverse locations? Hybrid cloud management is the answer. In this guide, we’ll lay out effective ways to manage your IT infrastructure.

What is hybrid cloud management?

Hybrid cloud management is the control and monitoring of resources, workloads, and policies across multiple physical and cloud environments. A hybrid cloud architecture could include:

• On-premises: the company’s own hardware and servers located in its office building or data center
• Private cloud: an organization’s dedicated cloud-computing environment
• Public cloud: standard cloud computing where a provider deals with multiple customers
• Edge environments: devices processing data close to the source, such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices

Core capabilities and components of hybrid cloud management

A hybrid cloud management solution is an integrated platform that gives you visibility and control over your on-premises, cloud, and edge environments from one interface. The right tool will also allow you to monitor performance, troubleshoot, and fix any issues.

Guaranteeing easy and secure data transfers is a must, but you should also have the flexibility to choose the best environment for each application. Being able to switch easily between them will also make the most efficient use of resources.

Benefits and trade-offs of hybrid cloud management

Knowing the pros and cons of hybrid cloud management will help you choose the best solution for your specific needs. We’ve laid out the most important ones below.

Benefits of hybrid cloud management

When implemented right, hybrid cloud solutions offer impressive benefits, like:

• Reduced fragmentation: Hybrid cloud management solutions bring everything together under a single dashboard so you can monitor and control your entire architecture in one place.
• Consistent governance: The right solution will improve your regulatory compliance with consistent policy enforcement across clouds.
• Flexibility: Easily handle demand spikes by using automated workload placement and cloud bursting. This allows you to redirect to the public cloud when capacity is scarce on the private cloud.
• Cost savings: Automatically scale and optimize resources across different cloud environments, leading to more efficient resource usage and reduced costs.

Trade-offs and challenges

The hybrid cloud model does create a few challenges. Here are some common issues you may face:

• Complexity: Integrating disparate cloud and on-premises environments can be challenging, and multiple clouds will become unwieldy if not set up correctly and managed carefully.
• Security risks: Having to transfer data to and from the cloud creates more opportunities for sensitive data to be exposed. While a highly secure hybrid cloud setup is certainly possible, security considerations do provide an extra challenge.
• Extra overheads: While hybrid cloud management often reduces overall costs by using resources more efficiently, acquiring and maintaining cloud management tools adds up-front overhead.
• Skill gaps: Your staff will need to be fully up to speed on hybrid cloud solutions, likely requiring investment in skills development and training.

How to implement a hybrid cloud management strategy

It’s important to align cloud adoption with your business goals and to maintain control across all of your environments. This includes your on-premises, private cloud, public cloud, and edge locations. To create a hybrid cloud management strategy, you’ll need to plan carefully. After everything’s in place, you’ll also need to monitor the system and keep optimizing as you go.

Start by identifying all your workloads and where they’re currently located. Then, consider which environment is best for each resource, keeping in mind things like security and availability. Ask yourself, is it more important to keep the data safe or to minimize downtime? And how much growth and scaling do you expect? 

When you’ve designed your hybrid cloud architecture, select the tools you’ll be using, from your cloud management platform to individual tools for things like security, compliance, and automation. 

Best practices for hybrid cloud management

To create a successful hybrid cloud environment, follow these best practices:

• Start with a plan: Have a clear idea of how you want everything set up from the start, with carefully designed governance, policies, and ownership. This will help you stay on track if the process gets complicated.
• Automate wherever possible: Automating as much of the process as possible makes hybrid cloud management less complex. Everything from provisioning to compliance and remediation can be streamlined with automation.
• Integrate tools: Make sure your cloud management platform integrates with your other tools. Being able to view everything on a single dashboard will make things easier to manage. 
• Train your employees: Ensure all developers and analysts are properly trained in how your hybrid cloud model works and that they understand how to use it effectively.
• Test before moving on: Conduct thorough testing before moving to production, and prioritize security above all else. Taking the time to check everything is working as intended will help you avoid costly slipups.
• Document everything: Keep clear documentation of how your hybrid cloud is set up and who’s responsible for each part of it. If something goes wrong, these records will make it easier to find a fix and know who to contact.

Hybrid cloud management tools

Making use of tools and technologies can turn hybrid cloud management from a complicated headache to a streamlined procedure. Here are the main tools you’ll need to maintain control of your hybrid cloud infrastructure:

• Cloud management platform (CMP): This is the main platform where you monitor and control your entire hybrid cloud environment via a single dashboard.
• Automation tools: Use these tools to automate the deployment and configuration of the hybrid cloud. They’ll also let you automatically redirect resources for better speed and efficiency.
• Security tools: These tools protect your data, enforce policies, and detect threats. Robust security is a must in any hybrid cloud model.
• Policy engines and governance frameworks: Use compliance software to ensure better governance. Automated updates and alerts in policy and governance tools help you comply with all regulatory requirements.

Hybrid cloud management examples

Here are some effective use cases for hybrid cloud management.

Cloud bursting during demand spikes

Use automated tools to monitor your private servers for surges in demand and to redirect to a public cloud if you need greater capacity. This technique is called “cloud bursting,” and it’s particularly useful around seasonal spikes or major product launches.

Automatic workload tiering

Tiered workload placement is another hybrid cloud example. This storage management method automatically places data and applications in the optimal location based on factors like performance, cost, and compliance requirements.

Disaster recovery

By moving seamlessly between multiple environments, you can reduce dependency on a single server or cloud environment. If disaster strikes, you’ll be able to lean on the still-operating parts of your infrastructure to get back up and running as soon as possible.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) 

A hybrid cloud is an ideal place for IaC solutions. This refers to the management and provisioning of infrastructure through code rather than manual processes. By using code to define and set up servers, databases, and networks, you’ll be able to deploy faster and reduce human error.

How Fivetran enables hybrid deployment for secure hybrid cloud management

With Fivetran’s hybrid deployment model, you get the flexibility and control you need to manage data pipelines across hybrid cloud environments.

Extract and load sensitive data from databases and applications stored on-premises or on private cloud networks, run it through Fivetran’s secure SaaS platform, and enjoy analytics-ready data with fully centralized monitoring and maintenance.

With Fivetran’s sophisticated architecture, you’ll be able to scale quickly while maintaining control over your files and keeping security tight. Get started for free to see how easy it is to automate data transformation with Fivetran.

FAQs

What types of hybrid cloud solutions exist?

Hybrid cloud solutions can link public and private clouds, as well as on-premises infrastructure and edge environments.

What’s the difference between cloud and hybrid cloud?

A cloud can either be public (run by a third-party provider and shared with other customers) or private (run by a single organization). A hybrid cloud is a combination of both types, as well as any on-premises storage or edge environments. In a hybrid cloud model, you can transfer data and applications between public and private clouds as needed.

What’s an example of a hybrid cloud service?

A hybrid cloud example would be a company using a public cloud for a popular customer application to ensure scalability, but keeping sensitive private data on its own servers or in a private cloud for enhanced security.

What hybrid cloud offerings are available?

Major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and IBM offer tools to help integrate their public cloud offerings with private clouds and on-premises data storage. Read our detailed comparisons of GCP vs. AWS and Azure vs. AWS.

With Fivetran’s hybrid deployment model, you can manage data pipelines securely within your own network. It allows you to extract and load sensitive data from databases and applications stored on-premises or on private cloud networks and run it through Fivetran’s secure SaaS platform.

[CTA_MODULE]