Private and public cloud - the best of both worlds?
Public cloud is often seen as a nirvana - the answer to all your problems. But is it right for every organisation?
Both public and private cloud solutions offer benefits to any business. But what if you want to make the most of both?
Public or private?
Many organisations that have invested in typical traditional private cloud or managed hosting, find themselves wanting to move to the public cloud for the flexibility and simplicity it offers. However, this transition process can be time-consuming and difficult, so plans often become waylaid.
On the other side of the coin is the so-called ‘boomerang effect’. This is where organisations have gone all in for public cloud, then realised the cost savings weren’t quite as comprehensive as they expected. To prevent bill shock, they must now look at how they can now get these costs under control.
If any of that sounds familiar, you’ll understand why so many organisations are eager to find a solution that allows them to get the best of both clouds — public and private.
The best of both worlds
I think a hyperconverged service is that solution.
Firstly, organisations can use it to make reaching public cloud easier. They can, for example, move to a hyperconverged scenario now, and then a couple of years down the line be in a position to modify their apps and make the move to public cloud.
It provides a high-performance block of infrastructure, with all the cloud-like functionalities you’d expect. Teams can go into the portal and create or manage infrastructure in a matter of minutes, rather than the days or even weeks it can take in traditional systems. In terms of look and feel, it’s similar to public cloud options; yet it remains a private cloud. It’s high performance and more secure than the public cloud — and, since its dedicated and can be based on your premises, it complies with many regulations. Essentially, it gives you access to all the benefits of public cloud, but in your own data centre.
Add to it the commercial model where many service providers are offering pre-activated buffer capacity, lower starting points and pay per usage commercial terms which make it easy for customers to consume these services from a commercial point of view.
One important point is to differentiate between equipment purchase and an end to end SLA based service. The real benefits kick in when a service provider is able to add the benefits of scale and operational efficiency to the new hyper converged platform designs.
Dealing with critical data
If you deal with critical data — data which cannot sit outside your data centre due to regulations or your own internal policies — then hyperconverged is exactly what you need. With data so critical, you have to own it at all times, and so a public cloud model would not be suitable. However, maybe you still want to reap all the benefits of cloud and the economies that the cloud provides. Maybe you want to take advantage of the self-service aspect, ease-of-use, provisioning, or the ability to scale up and down offered by public cloud. This solution will enable you to remain compliant, prevent any security issues and, at the same time, help transform your infrastructure to something leaner and more economical to maintain.
Even if you already have a multi-cloud setup, there will always be certain applications or workloads which cannot go to public cloud. Do you now fragment your process? Do you mix traditional and cloud approaches to avoid this? A hyperconverged solution can help you move forward with confidence.
Is it right for you?
If you see the public cloud as the go-to answer for your business challenges, you’re not alone. But have you truly thought through the real cost of public? With it, will you be compliant and secure? Remember, you don’t have to go all-in for public, or invest heavily in private. There is another solution that sits somewhere in between — and that could be the one for you.
