Whether those goals are best met with one cloud, a hybrid model, or a multicloud model will depend on your unique situation, dependencies, budget, and available resources. We’ll cover the difference between multicloud and hybrid cloud so you can make an informed next step.

Public Cloud vs Private Cloud?

Hybrid environments combine public and private clouds. And in the case of hybrid IT, it can also include non-cloud environments. Generally, the choice between public and private cloud will come down to how much control businesses want over resources compared to the amount of flexibility they need.

Public cloud providers, such as AWS and Azure, rent out resources to companies in predetermined amounts at a discount, or on a model where you pay for what you use. Businesses have the flexibility to scale up or down their resources on-demand. However, they must navigate and configure the security settings and tools provided by the public cloud provider to ensure optimal security.

Private cloud can run on-premises or offsite with a data center provider. Organizations have significantly more control over configurations and security settings in a private cloud environment. However, scaling resources can be more challenging, and the infrastructure is often more expensive compared to public cloud options. This control and security, combined with the challenges of scalability and cost, make hybrid cloud solutions an attractive option for many businesses.

What is the Difference Between Multicloud and Hybrid Cloud Computing?

In cloud computing, we often hear the terms “multicloud” and hybrid cloud. While both terms sound similar, there are a few key differences organizations tend to overlook. Understanding the differences between these two cloud approaches is essential for organizations that are striving to ensure cloud optimization and meet business needs.

Architecture

A hybrid cloud is the combination of cloud and on-premises infrastructure in a unified framework. It could include public cloud (Microsoft Azure, AWS, etc.) and private cloud infrastructure. Hybrid cloud adoption has increased over the past few years due to its many benefits, which we’ll be covering shortly.

Multicloud computing is the use of multiple public cloud platforms to support business functions. Multicloud deployments can be part of an overall hybrid cloud environment. A hybrid cloud strategy may include multiple clouds, but a multicloud strategy isn’t necessarily hybrid.

Intercloud Workloads

In a multicloud environment, workloads are deployed across different public clouds and often require additional processes and tools for interoperability. Similarly, hybrid cloud environments can include these workloads but also involve movement between cloud and on-premises infrastructures. This flexibility is often necessary for legacy systems with numerous dependencies that cannot be easily migrated to the cloud.

Vendor Lock-in

Vendor lock-in happens when a business feels overly reliant on one cloud provider and finds it difficult to switch to a new provider without significant investment and resources to do so. While both formats may introduce vendor lock-in, this may be more common in hybrid cloud environments where businesses are only using one public cloud provider. In a multicloud configuration, organizations may have more flexibility to move workloads to different public cloud environments.

Pricing

This flexibility in options within a multicloud environment can lead to more competitive pricing for businesses. Public cloud resources can be purchased in discounted packages for predictable workloads, while pay-as-you-go pricing is available for variable workloads.

Availability

With hybrid cloud, availability depends on both the public cloud provider and the on-premises infrastructure in use. In contrast, a multicloud environment can offer higher availability since data and workloads are distributed across multiple public clouds, reducing the risk of downtime.

Data Storage

Data storage has some similarities and differences between cloud environments. In hybrid cloud storage, on-premises storage (private cloud) is combined with public cloud resources. This provides greater control for sensitive data stored on the private cloud, but also requires tools to move data between environments that may be harder to set up compared to multicloud environments. Hybrid cloud can be ideal for businesses that have a mix of sensitive and non-sensitive data, and for those that want greater control over their core infrastructure.

With multicloud storage, data is stored across public cloud providers, which offers greater flexibility and scalability. Although multicloud storage can also be complex to manage, it reduces the risk of vendor lock-in by providing businesses the option to choose between different public cloud providers based on their specific needs and cost considerations. Multicloud is well-suited for businesses that want more scalability and flexibility, and don’t have as many data residency regulation concerns.

Security

In comparing multicloud and hybrid cloud environments, security plays a crucial role. Hybrid cloud setups allow organizations to implement tailored security measures across both public and on-premises infrastructures, providing greater control over sensitive data. In contrast, multicloud environments, which rely on multiple public cloud providers, often have less room for customization. While this can present challenges for specific compliance needs, many public cloud providers still meet essential standards such as GDPR and HIPAA. Ultimately, the choice between the two depends on an organization’s specific security requirements and regulatory obligations.

Flexibility

In terms of flexibility, hybrid cloud environments offer organizations the ability to seamlessly integrate on-premises and public cloud resources. This allows businesses to choose where to host specific workloads based on factors like cost, performance, and compliance. On the other hand, multicloud environments provide flexibility through the use of multiple public cloud providers, enabling organizations to select the best services from each provider.

While both approaches enhance adaptability, hybrid clouds excel in integrating legacy systems, whereas multicloud setups offer diverse options and avoid vendor lock-in, allowing businesses to respond more dynamically to changing needs.

How is Hybrid Cloud Similar to Multicloud?

Despite these differences, hybrid cloud and multicloud share many similarities. They can both be solid frameworks to store sensitive data when configured well, but they can come with common challenges, such as cloud complexity.

Infrastructure Security

Both hybrid and multicloud environments operate on a shared responsibility model, where the level of infrastructure security responsibility may vary. Cloud providers are responsible for securing the underlying infrastructure, while customers must secure their applications, data, and access controls within that infrastructure.

Key responsibilities for businesses include identity and access management (IAM), data encryption, and vulnerability management. Users should have access only to the resources necessary for their roles, whether in public or private clouds. Data must be protected both at rest and in transit, so organizations need to implement proper encryption measures. Regularly scanning for vulnerabilities and applying patches is essential to mitigate risks associated with security weaknesses, including zero-day attacks. By actively managing these responsibilities, organizations can enhance their overall security posture in any cloud environment.

Storing Sensitive Data

Even though public cloud providers offer fewer security customizations for businesses, both hybrid and multicloud environments can be suitable for storing sensitive data. Hybrid cloud gives organizations the power to place their most sensitive information on private infrastructure, whereas multicloud infrastructure allows for redundancy across multiple public cloud providers, mitigating risks from outages and data breaches.

Managing Data

In both multicloud and hybrid cloud, businesses must determine how to manage data across different platforms without compromising accessibility or performance. Hybrid clouds require tools and processes to facilitate data movement between public and private environments. While multicloud setups can simplify data management by leveraging multiple public clouds, they may still necessitate additional configuration to ensure effective data movement between those clouds.

Regulatory Compliance

Different businesses and industries are subject to different regulatory requirements, such as HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA, and PCI-DSS. Most public cloud providers are certified to meet common compliance standards, but if you have very specific needs, you may need to talk with the provider to confirm they can meet your compliance capabilities. Hybrid cloud offers more control over regulatory compliance, allowing businesses to store sensitive data on-premises or in an offsite private cloud.

Cloud Complexity

Cloud complexity is an issue for hybrid and multicloud environments, but what is being managed is where the difference resides. Hybrid cloud involves managing public and private cloud infrastructure. Multicloud involves managing different public cloud provider platforms, APIs, and security settings.

Can a Hybrid Cloud be a Multicloud?

A hybrid cloud can incorporate multicloud elements if it includes multiple cloud environments, such as a combination of public and private clouds. However, multicloud specifically refers to the use of multiple public cloud services from different providers, so it is not accurate to consider all multiclouds as hybrid clouds. While a hybrid cloud may include public clouds, it is distinguished by the integration of on-premises or private cloud resources.

Why Do Companies Use Multicloud?

Companies use multicloud to escape vendor lock-in and improve flexibility and performance across cloud environments. This isn’t a great fit for companies that have legacy frameworks they can’t easily move to the cloud. However, for businesses looking to innovate, multicloud can be a great option.

Why Do Companies Use Hybrid Cloud?

Companies tend to use hybrid cloud when they are either not completely ready to move all of their workloads to the cloud, or when moving some workloads would require more effort than it is worth, but they still want to leverage the benefits of the cloud. Hybrid cloud can serve as a happy medium or a long-term solution for digital transformation in a company, allowing for more innovation and flexibility compared to on-premises frameworks.

Find the Right Cloud Strategy For You with Cloud Experts

Choosing between hybrid cloud and multicloud hinges on your unique business needs. Data sensitivity, scalability, compliance requirements, and budgetary limitations will determine the optimal solution. Need guidance in figuring out what configuration will work best for you? TierPoint’s cloud experts can help you choose the right mix of cloud platforms that will help you reach and exceed your digital transformation goals while keeping your financial constraints and regulatory requirements in mind.

Part of adopting the cloud is convincing your leadership that it’s time to modernize your IT infrastructure. The drivers could be network performance, on-premises data center costs, and more. Read our complimentary eBook to learn how to have those conversations.

Why are more folks using a hybrid approach rather than a single public IaaS cloud provider? Although leveraging cloud resources is necessary at this point, there are restrictions that can prevent companies from moving into the cloud fully. With that, hybrid cloud deployment is the crème de la crème solution for those who need to use components of private and public clouds.

While a hybrid cloud strategy helps enterprise users overcome common challenges (which we’ll get into later), these environments can be difficult to manage. To ensure a successful deployment and maintain the ongoing health of your cloud estate, it’s critical to incorporate necessary strategies and hybrid cloud management tools as needed.

What does hybrid cloud management mean?

Before we dive into what hybrid cloud management is, let’s explore what we mean when we refer to the hybrid cloud. As we alluded to earlier, hybrid cloud computing combines public (think Amazon Web Services) and private clouds (like on-premises infrastructure). 

When taking a hybrid approach to cloud computing, businesses can utilize aspects of the public cloud while still meeting regulations, such as those related to data security, with a private cloud. The clouds connect via a wide area network or broadband connection which allows data, workloads, and applications to be shared and managed within a single IT infrastructure.

Now that we’ve covered what a hybrid cloud is, we can dive into the definition of hybrid cloud management. This term simply means the management of a combined public cloud and private cloud environment.

There are many moving parts to consider within this type of infrastructure. To be successful in hybrid cloud management, it’s crucial to deeply understand security, governance, and the needs of the user, in addition to having in-depth knowledge of the technology involved.

Why are organizations choosing a hybrid cloud approach?

These days, it’s crucial for businesses to maintain their flexibility and be able to make quick changes at the drop of a hat. Because of this need for agility, IT leaders must embrace innovative experiences to stay competitive and ensure business continuity. By adopting this strategy, organizations can become more agile and efficient as they learn to adapt to ever-evolving business and customer needs.

According to a study by Forrester, IT leaders are also embracing hybrid strategies to boost their confidence in supporting their organizations’ primary application workloads on any platform while also ensuring they have the portability to switch between platforms as needed.

Additionally, most organizations see a hybrid cloud strategy and hybrid cloud management as crucial to adopt. Why? It allows them to experience the reliability, cost-savings, and scalability of public cloud. It also grants them the ability to maintain data sovereignty and the level of security associated with the private cloud and on-premises infrastructure.

Advantages and disadvantages of hybrid cloud management

As with anything, there are certainly pros and cons IT leaders should consider when it comes to managing hybrid cloud environments.

Advantages

• Cost optimization: Incorporating OpEx via the public cloud in a hybrid cloud environment can help you find the best fit solutions for balancing performance and IT cost optimization.
• Workload performance optimization: High-performance computing, fast communication networks, and edge computing resources are made possible with this infrastructure.
• Flexibility: Rightsizing compute, storage, and network bandwidth to meet business demands.
• Reliability: Enabling replication and failover to another cloud to bypass disruptions and ensure redundancy.

Disadvantages

• Implementation: Any time you add more cloud components to the mix, you have more variables to think about. Working with a cloud architect will help with any implementation and management challenges that come from a hybrid environment. This can also be a problem for compatibility between apps.
• Security: This type of model can introduce hybrid cloud complexity, especially when it comes to security. Security challenges increase with a hybrid cloud deployment. The blend of clouds requires security expertise across all platforms. Public cloud security is a shared responsibility (partially covered by you and the platform provider). In addition, extending private cloud security controls to the public cloud doesn’t always work. This complexity can cause security issues that will need to have a strategy in place to resolve.
• Blind spots and knowledge gaps: It’s important to have a holistic view of your cloud environment, and if you don’t have everything aggregated together, visibility can take a hit. Additionally, adopting a hybrid cloud may mean taking on something that your IT staff isn’t as skilled at. Being aware of your team’s abilities, and knowing when to take on outside help, will keep this risk low.
• Balance: Balancing traditional support teams and mechanisms with new DevOps-oriented methodologies can be complicated. However, this challenge can easily be overcome with the right cloud solutions provider.

Should I take a hybrid cloud management approach?

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide if this is the right approach for your business. As noted previously, with 82% of IT leaders choosing to move forward with adoption, the advantages of hybrid cloud management outweigh the cons for many decision-makers.

If you are planning to adopt this environment, it’s pertinent to keep in mind that maintenance and operations-related tasks can become more difficult due to the number of resources, platforms, and systems involved. Due to the complexity of the environment, most leaders turn to hybrid cloud management solution providers and tools to assist in upkeep.

How a cloud management tool can help

Hybrid cloud management tools and solutions are beneficial for numerous reasons, including their ability to take over the burden of management and day-to-day maintenance of your hybrid cloud. This perk is particularly helpful since it helps free up IT leaders and admin so they can focus on more innovation at the application level.

A quick example

For example, here are a few ways an infrastructure solution, like TierPoint’s disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) powered by Zerto, can help you…

• Minimize data loss and downtime: This single tool for disaster recovery protects applications and data from disruptions, including natural disasters, with strong SLAs and availability.
• Maintain security and compliance: Most, if not all, organizations have data and infrastructure regulatory requirements for critical systems. This solution complies with standards for both recovery and production environments.
• Lower complexity in hybrid resiliency: When using hybrid IT environments, it can be hard to a uniform recovery process, especially when different clouds are involved. However, this DRaaS tool can replicate, failover, and failback data smoothly. 

3 things to keep in mind for effective hybrid cloud management

If you’re ready to modernize your IT or you’re still deciding whether or not you should develop a hybrid cloud management strategy, here are three essential points to keep in mind.

1. Have a deep understanding of security and governance

Data security and governance are crucial requirements for customers and internal leaders. To meet these requirements, you must actively manage and improve the level of security you offer. You can boost your security capabilities by unifying security across your organization and leveraging tools and mechanisms such as:

• Security incident detection
• DevSecOps
• Firewalls
• IAM (identity and access management)
• At-rest or in-flight data encryption
• Multifactor authentication

2. Have a solid grasp on Service Level Agreements

Make sure you review any Service Level Agreements (SLAs) you currently have with your end users. Even though the cloud service provider is required to uphold their side of the SLAs, you must also understand and uphold any responsibilities you have. These agreements are a way for users and organizations to ensure their service-level expectations are understood by everyone involved. So, it’s important to understand each SLA and use them as guidelines.

3. Have a list of what needs to be managed

Before deploying a hybrid cloud environment, it’s crucial to have a list of everything that will run on your public and private cloud. If you don’t have a firm understanding of what all of your applications do or details relating to your workloads (i.e., when they run or their business purpose), it will be nearly impossible to have a hybrid cloud environment that operates smoothly.

Need help with hybrid cloud management or deployment?

If you’re ready to adopt a hybrid cloud strategy, we’re here to help. At TierPoint, we’re a leading national provider of hybrid IT solutions and services. To learn more about moving into a hybrid cloud environment and how we can help, contact us today at 877-859-8437.

As businesses look to hybrid cloud adoption solutions and migrate to hybrid environments, they want to do it quickly, but effectively. Adopting the cloud comes with benefits like cost savings and more opportunities for digital innovation, but making the change doesn’t happen at the press of a button. Even if you have the talent to manage an IT environment, it’s another thing entirely to manage hybrid cloud environments, conduct a cloud migration, and execute a cohesive hybrid cloud strategy. How can you speed up hybrid cloud adoption without running into snags?

What hinders hybrid cloud adoption?

Several factors can stand in the way of hybrid cloud adoption and that’s why having a solid cloud adoption strategy can help reduce the following obstacles including, the cost of implementation, challenges with existing architecture, security concerns, and conflicts with other business challenges and requirements.

Another way to overcome these obstacles is by using cloud services such as Managed Azure Stack. This service enables businesses to extend their Azure cloud capabilities across both public and private environments. By taking advantage of the familiar Azure ecosystem and offering a true hybrid solution, companies can ensure a smooth transition to accelerate their hybrid cloud adoption.

Costs across multiple cloud environments

There are many costs associated with the cloud, especially when you have multiple cloud platforms within one environment. Depending on the platform, you may have the option of fixed or consumption-based pricing models. Businesses often have trouble identifying the right pricing model, but it may depend on the workload. Certain public cloud “pay as you go” pricing changes depending on time (or data), CPU, and execution usage.

Understanding these pricing models will provide better visibility for what you’re spending where. And help you see where optimizations can be made along the way.

Migration

Migrating to a cloud platform is already a complex task. Migrating to multiple cloud platforms in a hybrid environment can add even more complexity. Rushing to move your infrastructure to the cloud could mean putting things together in a less-than-ideal way – skipping key integrations, cutting corners, and creating broken pieces along the way that lead to increased costs and decreased productivity. Taking the time to do things right and create a cohesive cloud migration strategy will help circumvent any major issues.

Security & compliance

Managing security requirements across multiple cloud environments can introduce more risks. Those multiple environments also need to meet your regulatory and compliance requirements. Security teams need to account for this added complexity and supplement internal security with outside expertise when implementing best practices and frameworks.

Governance

What happens after a successful cloud migration? Many businesses fall short of having a strategy once they have deployed a hybrid cloud solution. Governing that environment requires cloud visibility and resources to maintain that environment and reduce cloud sprawl. This also means having the right staff to maintain this environment. Some organizations do not have those internal resources and look outside of their organization to fill gaps.

The secret to hybrid cloud adoption, deployment, and management

We’ll level with you. The secret to successful adoption, deployment, and cloud management is not as complicated as you think. It all comes down to bringing in the right qualified people. Most businesses can be more successful with cloud infrastructure by relying on expertise from a managed services cloud provider. The right partner can help you accomplish the following:

Identify the right roadmap

After looking at the current state of your IT environment, an experienced cloud provider can help you figure out the best pathway to success. The process would look something like this: They would start with understanding your business goals and outcomes. Then, they will survey your entire IT environment to understand your current infrastructure. What does your infrastructure look like, including storage, hardware, software, and networking? This cloud partner would examine your workload needs and identify the right cloud platforms for each one. Depending on what they find, the options can vary. A cloud provider might suggest the use of a private cloud, multitenant, on-premises infrastructure, or public cloud deployments.

Private cloud

Private cloud infrastructure can either be located on-premises or at a separate data center facility that you lease or own. When it comes to the private cloud, you own your infrastructure and resources. If you use hosted private cloud, however, a third party will manage your resources. Hosted private clouds come with additional peace of mind.

Also read: The Big Benefits of Private Cloud

Public cloud

Hyperscale, also known as public cloud, is generally a multitenant cloud model where you pay for cloud services but skip the large infrastructure expenses. The public cloud enables businesses to scale their infrastructure. All while saving money on power, space, cooling, and facilities.

A public cloud is a type of multitenant architecture, where your resources are stored in a shared environment. While the private cloud involves a dedicated environment, multi-tenancy architecture has multiple customers operating on the same servers. There are many benefits of public cloud and it can be a great, budget-friendly option for organizations, but cost control and expertise are also up for question and need to be evaluated carefully.

On-premises

Many businesses have critical legacy systems that still need to be supported. Often, they are not workloads they need to sunset or rebuild. You don’t have to remove on-premises data centers and workloads from the mix. Eventually, you’ll probably want to migrate everything to make updates and continued innovation more seamless, but in the meantime, some of your workloads could be hosted in on-premises environments.

Hybrid cloud or multicloud

And lastly, all of these efforts can be combined in different iterations to form hybrid cloud and multicloud models. A multicloud is any infrastructure that includes a combination of cloud options (e.g., one private and two public cloud environments). Hybrid cloud can include a mix of cloud and non-cloud, on-premises environments. Using either of these approaches can mean getting the best of a few worlds all rolled into one.

Understanding these options, building a roadmap and strategy, and helping you deploy can mean your business adopts the cloud at a quicker rate. Working with an expert to sift through the flavors of the cloud and picking the combination that’s just right for your organization also optimizes your cloud spend – you can rest assured that you aren’t spending money or resources on things you don’t need.

Provide expertise that would otherwise not be available

When you work with an experienced cloud partner, there’s no need to search high and low for top IT talent. Your cloud partner has hired staff with specific expertise tailored to cloud deployments. They can strategize and migrate to a hybrid cloud for your business with ease because they’ve done it before. Experts are at your fingertips through your partner relationships. They have the techniques, knowledge, and advanced tools needed to successfully lead a hybrid cloud migration.

Spearhead cloud automation projects

Are there certain tasks your team engages in repeatedly? Ones that involve pressing the same sequences of buttons over and over? Repetitive tasks that change with few variables could benefit greatly from cloud automation. Automating tasks can cut down on redundancies and improve productivity; however, creating automation takes time and expertise.

A skilled cloud partner can not only help you identify opportunities for automation, but they can also create, test, and implement automation projects. Your employees will have some time freed up for other, more strategic tasks, and you may see fewer errors on the simpler tasks that are now performed automatically.

Help companies overcome IT skill and resource gaps post-migration

As more businesses compete for the small pool of cloud experts and engineers, the global IT worker shortage continues to grow. This shortage runs in direct opposition to the digital transformation goals of most businesses, with 58% of IT leaders increasing, or hoping to increase, investments in emerging technology. For 64% of the new tech these firms would like to take on, they have found that talent shortages have been the biggest thing standing in their way.

A cloud partner can bring in outside help. Day-to-day cloud operations can be handled by an external team, and the configuration of skills you have at your disposal can change alongside the changing needs of your digital transformation projects, all without having to hire, fire, or train additional internal employees. With access to varied talent, your staff has more time for business-critical projects, such as product development.

Cloud modernization can consist of a lot of heavy lifting, but it doesn’t have to. If you’re looking to sell hybrid cloud adoption or a modernization project to leadership, and you’re looking for more resources, check out our eBook, How to Sell Cloud Modernization to Your Leadership.

According to the 2021 State of the Cloud report:

• 92% of enterprises have a multicloud strategy
• 82% have a hybrid cloud strategy
• respondents use 2.6 public and 2.7 private cloud resources on average.

“Multicloud and hybrid cloud architectures are the new normal because it’s important to put the right workload in the right environment,” explains Dominic Romeo, Director, Product Management at TierPoint.

The growth of the Public Cloud

The global public cloud services market is expected to grow to over $397 billion in 2022, according to research by Gartner. The largest market segment is Software as a Service (SaaS), estimated to surpass $145 billion by the end of 2022. Infrastructure and desktop services are also growing rapidly.

The growth mostly benefits leading cloud providers, which include Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, according to the Gartner Magic Quadrant Case Study. Amazon retains its position as the leading public cloud infrastructure company with the largest market share.

Because cloud providers have different strengths, customers may choose different ones to meet various requirements. Requirements like geographic range, storage options, disaster recovery, or capabilities related to the type of applications or data they have. A company may be drawn to IBM due to their machine learning and AI capabilities, and opt for AWS due to their database experience. It isn’t uncommon to pick providers for specific use cases.

Hybrid cloud connectivity is critical

Connectivity – the bandwidth, latency, and resilience of a connection – is an increasingly important consideration. As multicloud and hybrid infrastructures become more prevalent, having a reliable and fast connection between cloud providers is critical.

“It’s important to know your latency requirements and to put the right data on the right transport,” said Romeo. “If I have ten seconds of latency, I need to ask, ‘How will that affect the end user or the data processing?’”

You may want to think about factors like load balancing. Load balancing is how you’ll support traffic to endpoints that serve your users best and strike an ideal balance from one data center to another. You may also want to consider your cloud interconnect options.

In the initial stages of cloud migration, an organization may have only non-critical data in the cloud, with a VPN as the connection. However, a VPN offers no guarantee in terms of throughput, latency, or performance as it travels over the internet. Once a company moves production applications and data to the cloud, they typically upgrade to a dedicated connection.

“While Internet VPNs can work great, there are many situations when you want the guaranteed performance, latency, and bandwidth of a dedicated connection,” explains Romeo.

Also read: The Cloud’s Importance in a Hybrid IT Strategy

Cloud connectivity options

Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute

Cloud infrastructure providers generally offer a range of connectivity options, from VPNs to high-bandwidth private circuits, at metered or flat-fee pricing. For example, along with VPN services, Microsoft also offers the Azure ExpressRoute private circuits, which provide direct network connectivity between Azure data centers and on-premises or colocated systems.

ExpressRoute connections are available in bandwidths ranging from 50 Mbps to 10 Gbps. For more bandwidth, Microsoft’s ExpressRoute Direct is a physically separate line that connects a customer to a Microsoft peering location and can provide up to 100 Gbps.

Cloud exchange

Another trend in cloud connectivity is the “cloud exchange.” It’s a term for cloud computing and managed service providers that also connect multiple cloud platforms under one umbrella. We have also been expanding services in colocation, backup, security, disaster recovery, and management services.

In order for a customer to have access to a range of hybrid and multicloud options, all they need to do is connect to the exchange provider. The arrangement makes it more cost-effective and low risk for customers to experiment with different platforms for best results.

As organizations adopt multicloud environments and require interoperability between platforms, the exchange model of cloud connectivity may well become the norm.

Key considerations for cloud connectivity

When evaluating cloud connectivity in accordance with your needs, remember – the optimal path to the cloud isn’t necessarily the shortest one. When you’re evaluating hybrid cloud connectivity, ask yourself the following questions:

• How do I ensure the resiliency and redundancy of my connections?
• How much bandwidth will I need?
• What are the latency connection requirements of different systems?
• Do I need to purchase additional network gear?
• Do I have the right staff to support it?
• What service providers can offer high-performance hybrid connectivity?

Also read: Network Infrastructure Trends: Long-Term Strategy

Is your hybrid environment optimized for cloud connectivity?

Is your cloud connectivity aligned with your business goals? If not, we can help you evaluate the best connectivity options for your hybrid cloud environment. To learn more about multicloud and hybrid cloud connectivity, contact us today.

Ongoing complications from the COVID-19 pandemic have taken their toll on businesses. While October 2021 saw a rebound, with 85% of small businesses reopening after temporary closures due to the pandemic, the most recent Small Business Pulse reported that 43.8% of businesses experienced a moderate negative effect from COVID-19 on their business, while 22.1% of businesses experienced a large negative effect.

The sectors hit the hardest were accommodation and food services (45.8% said it had a large negative effect), educational services (39.8%), and arts, entertainment, and recreation (39.7%) Even with businesses reopening, things are still in flux, and many “non-essential” mid-sized enterprises lost a significant portion of their revenue that will take a while to recover.

While many businesses experienced negative setbacks due to the pandemic, 25.1% of respondents said it had little to no effect on their business. Some even felt a positive effect – 7.2% experienced a moderate positive effect, and 1.8% saw a large positive effect.

This is to say that COVID-19 hasn’t and won’t impact every business equally. Businesses deemed essential early on, especially those that were able to pivot based on needs they identified in the market, may have a strong cash position now.

If you experienced success during a time of uncertainty, you may be looking at opportunities for expansion in the year to come. While you’re assembling your due diligence teams and performing your cost/benefit analyses, you’ll want to remember to include the cost of adopting a hybrid cloud strategy.

What is hybrid cloud infrastructure?

A hybrid cloud model encompasses multiple cloud platforms, like public cloud services (Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure), hosted private cloud, cloud storage, and multitenant cloud.

If you’re leveraging cloud resources, you probably already have workloads deployed across multiple clouds, often from different cloud vendors. It’s not uncommon for an acquisition to leave you with a true hybrid infrastructure, including private and public cloud resources that are unfamiliar to your team.

Company A: Stuck on Tradition

Imagine this scenario: Company A has weathered the ongoing storm, and finds itself in a strong position by the end of the year. They have some money to spend, but they’re not sure where to go with it. Company A is an older organization with a somewhat traditional approach to business and IT.

In the back office, they’re running financial applications that haven’t been updated in 20 years. In fact, the core application is still green screen, running on AS/400 hardware. The company, in short, is the opposite of the poster child for digital transformation. What they could use is help from a company that isn’t afraid to try something new.

Company B: Ready for Innovation

Knowing they need to innovate to survive long-term, management is taking a good look at Company B. They’re a young organization in the same market with a deep talent pool and a lot of cutting-edge ideas. Unfortunately, they lost funds and are actively looking for an infusion of cash to keep their dream alive.

Sounds like a match made in heaven. Company A can provide the cash to continue to fuel R&D, as well as a ready-made customer base for upsell opportunities. Company B has a small, but no insignificant, customer base already.

They provide the talent and the innovative spirit to propel the combined organization into a market leadership position. Culturally, the companies are different, but with a strong, top-down direction, these minor differences can be easily overcome.

So, what can go wrong, outside of the obvious hurdles that come from the management complexity of navigating cultural differences during an acquisition?

Hybrid cloud infrastructure on accident

The odds of these two diverse organizations having a similar approach to IT are extremely low. We already know Company A has legacy applications and data. Company B, on the other hand, sees IT as a strategic advantage. Every application they use is in the cloud, and most of it is subscription-based.

Company B’s strategy of empowering employees has served them well in R&D, but it’s led to a hodgepodge of solutions in IT and an overall lack of control. In fact, they’ve never quite gotten around to creating a configuration management database (CMDB), and they’re not really sure how many applications the organization has deployed.

Post deal, the combined IT organization will be tasked with managing a hybrid environment, with a mix of cloud and non-cloud resources, such as on-premises resources, virtual machines, public cloud environments, and operating systems.

Consolidating IT into a centrally managed, or at least consistent, environment, across divisions can have several benefits, including tighter hybrid cloud security and compliance, greater resiliency, and lower spend. The challenge in this situation is that no one on either team has the expertise they need to lead such a consolidation.

Also read: The Cloud’s Importance in a Hybrid IT Strategy

Working with a Managed Cloud Hosting Provider

The newly combined organization could benefit from what Gartner calls a Managed Hybrid Cloud Hosting (MHCH) provider, which is hosting that includes a cloud-enabled system infrastructure (CESI) platform and cloud infrastructure framework software. An MHC provider has broad experience across multiple types of clouds. They also provide common tools and services across resources to create a unified experience for the customer.

The unified experience provided by an MHCH provider gives the customer visibility into the resources that they need to manage them more effectively. Here are some recommendations for finding and working with the right MHCH:

• Assess what is and isn’t covered in the managed service provider’s (MSP’s) offered statement of work (SOW) and service-level agreements (SLAs) to minimize operational risk.
• Proactively and frequently review the market for changes. Don’t wait for contract breakpoints to reassess provider options.
• Examine the providers’ hyperscale partner certifications and how they can assist your organization. Third-party certifications are more reliable.
• Actively manage the division of operational and support responsibilities between in-house staff and the MSP to minimize disruptions.
• Have a strategic exit plan or multi-cloud strategy in case of a change in vendor status and viability to mitigate risk.

How TierPoint can help with your hybrid infrastructure

As a Managed Hybrid Cloud Hosting Provider, TierPoint has helped dozens of clients consolidate unfamiliar IT systems after a merger or acquisition. This often involves a significant re-platforming effort, for example, migrating from on-premises infrastructure to public and private clouds with time for development and testing.

Sometimes, we’re just called in to assess the situation to give our client a clear view of the challenges that lie ahead. Occasionally, we’re even called in pre-acquisition to assist in the due diligence efforts. To learn more about our services that can assist with your hybrid cloud architecture, reach out to one of our cloud experts.

What is Hybrid IT?

Hybrid IT infrastructure has emerged as the de facto infrastructure model for modern enterprises. Hybrid IT includes on-premises legacy systems, hosted or in-house private clouds, and public cloud services. Successful hybrid IT also provides a strategy for how disparate systems will be implemented, integrated, and secured.

8 reasons why hybrid IT is the future of data centers

1. Support for multiple cloud platforms

Different types of cloud platforms cater to different workload and end-user needs. Hybrid IT supports public and private clouds. A private cloud is dedicated to one customer, while public cloud environments are shared by multiple customers. (See also: Why the cloud is important for any hybrid IT strategy. )

Public cloud services are ideal for providing basic work applications to a geographically distributed workforce. For applications with heavy compute and bandwidth needs (like big data analysis), a private cloud may provide a better environment. 

Also read: What are the different cloud platforms and how do they work? 

2. Integration between disparate cloud and non-cloud platforms

If you have multiple cloud platforms (with a legacy system or two), then your data center managers need to integrate those cloud services and data repositories to share data and processes. Writing custom code is one option, but the better approach is to use the integration tools. Many are available as Integration as a Service (iPaaS), a cloud-based service with tools for integrating hybrid systems.   

3. Ability to use cloud providers to fill resource gaps

Do you have the right staff to implement and manage a hybrid IT environment? Recruiting employees skilled in cloud development, security, and integration has become a serious challenge due to the rising demand for cloud professionals. 

Outsourcing portions of a project or using consulting expertise is typically less expensive and faster than recruiting in-house staff. Many cloud services and data center providers routinely offer consulting services for enterprise customers. Some also facility operators offer managed services to handle applications or areas outside of your staff’s expertise. 

4. One security strategy to protect your entire environment

There are plenty of strong third-party security solutions for hybrid cloud environments. These solutions offer protections like: 

• analytics-driven threat management 
• real-time threat alerts 
• web application firewall services 
• network IDP for cloud environments
• AI and machine learning to learn and detect emerging threats 
• dashboards for monitoring cloud services and components 
• and automated enforcement of security policies 

Finally, disaster recovery (DR) has become critical for safeguarding data and systems compromised by ransomware or other cyber-attack. Storing data and transactions in the cloud makes it easier to restore your IT systems quickly after an outage. This could help you avoid paying huge ransoms or taking weeks to restore operations. 

5. Platform options that are scalable

Scalability means building with future capacity needs in mind. A key advantage of the cloud is its ability to scale up quickly when needed. When evaluating cloud platforms, look for the ability to meet future requirements. Examples are: 

• on-demand storage for the ever-growing volumes of data 
• rapid access to new end-user licenses to support an influx of new employee end users.
• the platform provider’s geographic reach into regions or markets you may want to serve down the line 

6. Connectivity for all platforms and workloads

As hybrid environments grow in complexity, so does the potential for latency. Because public internet connections are shared, they may suffer spotty performance and weak security. Instead, many organizations rely on VPNs or other types of dedicated connections, all of which can be expensive and slow to implement. 

Most major cloud infrastructure providers offer multiple connectivity options, from VPNs to high-bandwidth private circuits. Throughout the global pandemic, businesses realized the need for strong connectivity throughout their environment. This ensured they accommodated the remote workforce and increase demand for data and applications from customers. 

7. Edge computing capabilities

Edge computing is a relatively new concept in cloud computing that locates data and content closer to applications and end users. For example, gaming or big data analysis applications, perform better when they don’t have to travel a long distance to end users. Edge computing helps by bringing compute resources closer to the applications and data that need them. 

Some cloud and data center providers offer edge network services. For example, some providers offer edge computing and content delivery network (CDN) services. CDN is a form of edge computing that focuses on content such as video and other bandwidth-heavy content. 

8. Access to continuous innovation

Cloud providers have different strengths and customers may choose multiple providers to satisfy different computing needs. Geographic range, security services, disaster recovery options, consulting and implementation services, storage options, and the number and type of cloud platforms are some of the considerations when evaluating providers. 

You also need providers that can help you evaluate and implement new products and technologies such as: 

• artificial intelligence and machine learning 
• augmented reality 
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 
• Network as a Service (NaaS)
• Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)
• desktop and server virtualization
• software-defined networking 
• and other technologies 

The most advanced cloud providers have partnerships with other technology vendors. Providers with partnerships can offer you access to a wide network of IT expertise, emerging technologies, connectivity options, integrations with other cloud solutions.

We can help you reach the data center of the future

Finding the right data center infrastructure for your business will be key to achieving your business goals. A good data center provider can also design and manage all or parts of your multicloud and hybrid environments.

Our experts and network of technology providers are critical to helping customers stay innovative and competitive. We can help you assess your digital infrastructure and find the right solution to drive your future growth.

In fact, nearly three-quarters of organizations have implemented or are planning to implement a hybrid IT environment, according to 451 Research. 

How the cloud and the hybrid IT model are evolving is the topic of TierPoint’s webinar, Why Hybrid IT Environments are a must in 2022 and Beyond, moderated by TierPoint’s senior director of product research Dave McKenny. 

McKenny, along with Tara Kovaleski, a TierPoint solution architect, and Bryan O’Neal, director of product management for cloud solutions at TierPoint, shared their insights into the challenges in hybrid IT and what enterprise customers are looking for in cloud services. 

Priorities for enterprise cloud customers

Flexibility is a top priority of enterprise customers, they noted. 

“Enterprises are looking for solutions that combine some type of multi-tenant, public, SaaS [software-as-a-service], as well as dedicated and private solutions,” said Kovaleski. 

She noted that customers frequently need greater flexibility with their hybrid environments to meet a growing range of IT and business needs. 

“Different applications fit better in different environments. A very static type of application might fit better in a private, dedicated environment, whereas a dynamic, fluid application works well in the cloud,” she said. 

What is hybrid IT?

Traditionally, a hybrid IT environment might include public cloud services, often from multiple cloud providers, along with non-cloud on-premises infrastructure or co-located systems, and a hosted or on-premises private cloud. Different environments serve the different needs of the applications and the organization. 

The public cloud uses a multitenant cloud platform so that cloud resources are pooled and shared across multiple customers. A multitenant structure optimizes the usage of resources improves the cost-effectiveness for customers. The public cloud is also well suited for dynamic or highly distributed applications, however, the shared infrastructure can occasionally cause performance issues. 

Alternatively, private clouds provide a single-tenant platform dedicated to one customer. Private clouds give more control to the customer, who is also responsible for the full cost and maintenance of the infrastructure. Customers with higher performance requirements or who must meet stringent data privacy and security laws often prefer a dedicated cloud infrastructure. 

However, private and public are no longer the only types of cloud. The development of new cloud models and technologies provides more options for IT organizations seeking to move applications to the cloud and achieve greater flexibility with a multicloud or hybrid infrastructure. 

Cloud innovation driving hybrid cloud environment flexibility

In the webcast, O’Neal, McKinney, and Kovaleski highlighted four developments in cloud computing that provide greater flexibility in hybrid environments. 

Edge computing maximizes performance

For example, edge computing is a new model in cloud computing for moving content and data closer to the end-users and applications that need it. Media companies, for example, move video and other content to edge cloud locations closest to different geographical markets to reduce latency and use less bandwidth. 

IT organizations are leveraging edge computing in a variety of use cases, not just for media and video content. For example, companies can use the edge model to create local networks of smart devices in offices or create ecommerce systems specific to different international markets. 

“The edge is a key part of an organization’s success in expanding globally,” noted O’Neal. 

Public and private clouds merge

Major cloud providers such as Amazon and Google now offer software and services for creating public cloud infrastructure within their own data centers. Solutions such as VMWare’s vSphere, Amazon’s AWS Outpost, and Microsoft’s Azure Stack are examples of software aimed at bringing the advantages of the multi-tenant public cloud model to on-premises data centers. Azure Stack is a portfolio of products that extend Azure services and capabilities to other environments, such as a private data center, edge locations, or remote branch offices. 

“A statistic from Gartner predicts that, by 2023, more than 10% of large enterprises will be using on-premises public cloud infrastructures within their own private data centers,” said McKinney. “That’s up from less than 1% in 2019.” 

Similarly, TierPoint has a multitenant hosted private cloud that gives customers the security and performance of dedicated infrastructure but a multitenant structure to share IT resources (and costs) across a customer’s enterprise. 

Cloud expands to hardware

A growing percentage of IT shops are purchasing new technology through subscriptions, rather than making large investments in new hardware. 

“The subscription model is appealing for hardware as you don’t have to make a large capital purchase at the start of your five-year plan,” said Kovaleski. “Instead, you can focus on a much shorter window, and expand your hardware as needed.”

There are several options. The first cloud model to address hardware was the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) model. IaaS provides access to a provider’s cloud-based infrastructure resources like storage and computing. However, IaaS is a packaged service that limits a customer’s control over the hardware. 

Bare metal cloud services is another hardware services model that caters to customers who want a dedicated infrastructure they alone control. Bare-metal cloud services provide dedicated hardware resources via subscription. As the term implies, bare-metal hardware services come without any installed operating systems or virtualization infrastructure. Bare metal subscriptions spare customers the burden of maintaining and replacing old hardware. 

The rise of software-defined infrastructure—software-defined networking, storage, etc.—provides even more flexibility in selecting and configuring hardware. A software-defined infrastructure, whether in the cloud or at an on-premises data center, is a virtual infrastructure with compute, storage, networking, and other infrastructure elements. 

More workloads made for the cloud

Several factors are increasing the range of workloads that can run in the cloud. For starters, the pandemic created a huge demand for online work applications that could be quickly implemented and easily scaled. Online collaboration tools, video conferencing, and virtual desktops became ubiquitous. 

Rising ransomware and other cyber-attacks, as well as concern over climate disasters–such as the fires in California—have driven up demand for cloud-based storage and disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS). Also, more developers are creating cloud-native applications as well as cloud-enabling legacy applications. There are fewer IT systems that can’t operate on cloud infrastructure, whether public or private. 

“There are many more workloads today that are no-brainer candidates for the cloud, whether they’re software-as-a-service or mission-critical workloads,” said O’Neal. “This is a wake-up call to customers who’ve been entrenched in the on-premises world that there are many benefits to the cloud delivery model.” 

Learn more about hybrid IT

You can listen to the entire webinar here to learn more about what’s trending in today’s hybrid IT world and how the cloud can help you achieve your hybrid IT goals. 

“62% of enterprises now use a hybrid IT environment with integrated on-premises systems and off-premises cloud/hosted resources; 39% of enterprises will be running the bulk of their workloads in public clouds by 2020, while 35% will be running workloads in a combination of hosted and on-premises private clouds by 2020.”

– Carl Lehman, Principal Analyst, 451 Research, August 2019, Hybrid Cloud Management & Integration

Pure Storage is a BraveIT 2020 sponsor, where the hybrid cloud is sure to factor heavily in nearly every discussion. Even though this year’s event is virtual, we’re eager to interact with other IT thought leaders who are working to transform enterprise IT. We also want to thank TierPoint for giving us an opportunity to share our thoughts on hybrid cloud computing on their blog. Read our full thoughts on Hybrid Cloud and Managed Services Providers here.

The modern data experience for hybrid cloud computing

Building a hybrid cloud architecture isn’t easy. Many IT organizations are siloed, without a lot of the visibility and collaboration between teams necessary to orchestrate workloads across multiple environments. Application and database architectures are often incompatible. Legacy systems don’t integrate easily.

However, the list of benefits realized from a coordinated, holistic hybrid architecture are substantial. Perhaps the greatest benefit is the ability to restructure IT costs without compromising security or performance. Cloud-native workloads can be migrated to highly scalable cloud environments like AWS or Azure. Some legacy applications, such as those with significant interdependencies, can be rearchitected for a private cloud, while others can be housed in a streamlined on-prem environment.

To support the transformation to the hybrid cloud, Pure enables a multi-cloud data plane that eliminates the complexity of operating private and public cloud environments. This enables complete flexibility across cloud and on-prem solutions. Pure’s approach helps organizations replace antiquated storage systems with fast, flexible resources that fit modern operating environments.

We call this the Modern Data Experience, and it includes four key pillars:

• Cloud everywhere – Our cloud-ready, data-centric architecture enables you to build your cloud, run it, and protect it anywhere.
• Subscription to innovation – Our products breaks the legacy storage model that forces enterprises to repurchase all hardware, software, and maintenance contracts every few years. With our subscription service, contract customers get upgradable hardware, white-glove support, non-disruptive upgrades, no data migration, and right-size guarantees for their environment.
• Deep integration with private clouds – We deliver comprehensive integrations with VMware, Microsoft, and OpenStack clouds. This provides enterprises with an automated, effortless, and cost-optimized hybrid-cloud infrastructure.
• Pure Cloud Block Store (CBS) – Pure Cloud Block Store for Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers industrial-strength block storage delivered natively in the cloud.

These four pillars help address both the architectural and consumption challenges of the hybrid cloud. With Pure, data is easily portable between the clouds and flexible consumption model options assist with managing both risk and cost. Read more about these four key pillars in our blog post: Delivering Hybrid Cloud for Managed Service Providers.

Join us at BraveIT 2020

As mentioned earlier, we’re also a sponsor of TierPoint’s BraveIT 2020 conference, where guest speakers and experts will discuss hybrid and multicloud, cybersecurity trends, disaster recovery trends, how businesses will pivot post-pandemic, and more.

BraveIT 2020 is an interactive, thought leadership and networking event designed for the modern IT professional. The 2020 BraveIT virtual conference will take place September 16-17 with multiple guest speakers and panels. See the full agenda and register today.

BraveIT Spotlights are guest blog posts from our 2020 BraveIT sponsors. Shobhit Bhutani is the Global Solutions & Product Marketing Manager at Pure Storage.

What is hybrid cloud computing?

We define a “hybrid cloud computing” as an environment with a mix of cloud and non-cloud technologies. This differs from our multicloud definition in which multiple clouds are deployed in one IT environment.

Though not necessarily a cloud environment, colocation remains a smart choice for organizations looking to decommission their on-premises data center. This is one of the reasons our definition of a hybrid cloud environment includes cloud and non-cloud technologies. If you need to integrate non-cloud workloads into your environment, it’s important to choose a cloud provider who understands and has experience addressing your unique requirements.

Gartner released a Market Guide for Managed Hybrid Cloud Hosting that we think you will find useful. Here is the report:

Advice of note from the hybrid cloud computing market guide

Have an open mind when it comes to the cloud

In the report, one of the recommendations that stood out to us was to “be open-minded” about the many rich alternatives to simply “public” and “private” solutions. We’ve talked about these kinds of alternatives before, like hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), and we whole-heartedly echo this advice. Cloud technologies and services are advancing with astounding rapidity. The understanding of the cloud you developed while doing research six months ago, is potentially out of date.

Latency and security matter

Provider attributes are also important. Location and proximity do matter. The further your data is from point of use; the more likely latency is going to be an issue. Advancements like 5G will have an impact, but this will be short-lived in our data-driven world as applications progress to take advantage of the increased bandwidth.

Location can also be a consideration for security and compliance reasons. Choosing a data center that is within a reasonable travel distance will allow you to keep an eye on the physical security protocols and daily practices of your provider. This is and always will be an important consideration for those in highly regulated industries like healthcare and government.

A provider who knows your ecosystem is vital

As your business grows, you want a partner who can scale resources to meet your needs and provide additional services to ensure your IT environment is safe, secure and operates efficiently. Choosing a provider with additional managed services, beyond hosting, is a step in the right direction.

We’re a hybrid cloud provider

TierPoint manages more than forty data centers across the U.S., and we’ve helped hundreds of organizations configure a hybrid cloud environment suited to their business and goals. We also provide a full menu of managed cloud services for many types of cloud platforms. Contact us to discuss your objectives and how we might be able to help you reach them.

Digital transformation & hybrid cloud stories

At TierPoint’s BraveIT 2019 conference, a panel of IT executives from different industries shared their experiences in migrating to a hybrid cloud infrastructure. They spoke with Microsoft’s Joe Flesch about their reasons for adopting hybrid cloud environments. Following is a sample of their insights:

Connection focuses on Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) & Hybrid Cloud

Paul Deguise, vice president IT Shared Services, Connection. Connection is a Fortune 1000 Global Solutions Provider headquartered in Merrimack, NH which sells enterprise IT products, solutions and services.

“For the past 40 years, our data center and IT expertise has been on-premises. But then one division began experimenting with Amazon’s AWS [cloud computing platform]. At that point, I realized that we didn’t necessarily want to be in the data center business. We started working with TierPoint within the past year. We brought a hyperconverged infrastructure into a TierPoint location and built out our hybrid cloud.

“One of the difficulties we’ve had venturing off our on-premise infrastructure was ensuring that our customers were happy. Fortunately, we have a services group that helps customers implement technology and they’re out in field with customers constantly. I was able to work with them to hone our strategy. For example, governance [and compliance] was an issue we realized we needed to look at. . . We also rely heavily on our partnerships to make things work.”

Christian Broadcasting Network on DRaaS & Colocation

Sherry Correll, director of IT, Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). The Christian Broadcasting Network is an American conservative evangelical religious television network and production company headquartered in Virginia Beach, VA.

“We used to have a large production studio in Nashville, with two huge studios, a call center and our own disaster recovery site that we managed ourselves. We decided to sell that facility and move the entire operation into a data center, rather than continue to do it ourselves.

One of the bigger challenges for us was understanding our inventory and identifying all the components and dependencies. Another challenge was finding a partner, like TierPoint, that understood what we were asking for. We needed Disaster Recovery as a Service, colocation, hosting services and some hybrid cloud as well. TierPoint was able to bring their engineers to the table, draw it out and help plan our move.

The reason we needed colocation is because we need large amounts of data storage for video, and because the call center application had some components that required physical servers. In addition, we needed hosting services for the rest of the operation. We were very successful with our move. We shut down our call center on Friday and were up and running on Monday.

It’s an interesting journey, but you really need to know what you have and what you want.”

Clearsense discusses having a hybrid environment for sensitive data and applications

Charles Boicey, Chief Innovation Officer, Clearsense. Based in Jacksonville, FL, Clearsense is a healthcare data aggregator with AI-based data analysis and a data-as-a-service platform for researchers, executives, clinical staff and financial staff in healthcare organizations.

“We have a private cloud in a TierPoint colocation environment in Jacksonville, FL and in Dallas, TX. We bring in all the data that our clients generate—data from all the medical monitoring systems and electronic medical records— and also bring in data from outside their environment, such as data from wearables, genomic data, environmental data and even consumer level data such as from Nielson. We have applications, like our data lake, that need to run on bare metal. We also have applications that run in a virtual environment.

Having a hybrid environment allows you to put those workloads where they need to be. More importantly, from a data ops perspective, our developers can spin up containers as needed during development and our R&D folks can also create their own environments without waiting on IT. That benefit transfers to our clients as well. If I have a [client] researcher who needs to crunch some heavy genomics and needs 100 containers, they can have that. A private cloud has helped accelerate both ours’s and our client’s activities.”

Watch the full BraveIT session ‘IT Leaders Trade Stories & Secrets’

Watch the full session below for more insights on cybersecurity, cloud migration, disaster recovery, budgets and human resources:

More content from BraveIT 2019

There were multiple panels and sessions at BraveIT, covering topics such as: What 5G will mean for IT organizations, hyperscale vs. hyperconverged infrastructure, the future of compliance, and much more.  Watch the full sessions on BraveIT TV.

Interested in participating in BraveIT 2020? Pre-register for BraveIT 2020 today.