<p>Businesses are migrating workloads to the public cloud and implementing private clouds in-house. As these forms of cloud computing continue to expand, large and small businesses are focused on a <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/definition/hybrid-cloud”>hybrid cloud</a> strategy to bridge the two models and form a hybrid cloud environment to support ever-more complex computing demands, such as AI and data sovereignty.</p>
<section class=”section main-article-chapter” data-menu-title=”What is hybrid cloud?”>
<h2 class=”section-title”><i class=”icon” data-icon=”1″></i>What is hybrid cloud?</h2>
<p>A hybrid cloud is a logical construct that establishes an operational connection between a <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/definition/private-cloud”>private cloud</a> and <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/definition/public-cloud”>public cloud</a>. Typically, an individual business builds and operates a private cloud intended solely for its own benefit. The cloud might be implemented within the local data center or provided as a third-party service.</p>
<p>A public cloud is typically a major multi-tenant cloud provider, such as Amazon Web Services (<a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchaws/definition/Amazon-Web-Services”>AWS</a>), Microsoft <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/definition/Windows-Azure”>Azure</a> or <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/definition/Google-Cloud-Platform”>Google Cloud</a>, as well as countless other SaaS providers. A hybrid cloud exists when an operational relationship is established between a public and private cloud to create a single, ubiquitous, interoperable logical cloud entity.</p>
<p>In more practical terms, a hybrid cloud is an amalgamation of technologies that include an on-premises data center, in-house or third-party private cloud and public cloud services. These technologies are connected through a <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/definition/WAN-wide-area-network”>WAN</a> and integrated through orchestration techniques to move data and <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatacenter/definition/workload”>workloads</a> seamlessly between private infrastructure and public clouds as computing needs or cost models change.</p>
<p>Ideally, a hybrid cloud provides businesses with competitive advantages, such as greater flexibility, as well as alternatives for workload deployment without unwanted tradeoffs, such as migrating traditional VM workloads to cloud instances or developing cloud-native applications tied to a specific provider’s services.</p>
<h3>Why hybrid clouds can be challenging to build and maintain</h3>
<p>Enterprises have no direct control over the public cloud, so they must architect a private cloud to be compatible with the intended public cloud — or even multiple clouds. Compatibility includes suitable compute, storage and networking hardware, along with compatible virtualization and private infrastructure software, such as <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/definition/OpenStack”>OpenStack</a>, to provide a desired array of private cloud services, network services, enterprise workloads and so on. This setup requires the substantial expertise of enterprise cloud architects and engineers.</p>
<p>As an alternative, some private clouds rely on predesigned infrastructure platforms provided by the public cloud provider. Examples include Azure Stack, Azure Arc, AWS Outposts and Google Anthos. Once deployed in a private cloud setting, these platforms offer a native interconnection to the broader public cloud — Azure, AWS or Google — to provide a faster and more convenient path to a hybrid cloud environment.</p>
<p>The most critical consideration is implementing a private cloud software stack compatible with the target public cloud’s APIs and services. Without this compatibility, workloads and data can’t move seamlessly from private to public clouds and back.</p>
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<section class=”section main-article-chapter” data-menu-title=”What are the benefits of a hybrid cloud?”>
<h2 class=”section-title”><i class=”icon” data-icon=”1″></i>What are the benefits of a hybrid cloud?</h2>
<p>Even though there’s considerable investment and effort involved, these eight main hybrid cloud benefits make hybrid cloud architecture compelling for many enterprises.</p>
<figure class=”main-article-image full-col” data-img-fullsize=”https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/hybrid_clouds_benefit
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