Over the last decade or so, cloud computing has become one of the technology industry’s ubiquitous success stories. Between 2010 and 2020, for instance, data suggests that the global cloud computing and hosting market grew by more than 500%. In monetary terms, from a value of ‘just’ $25 billion in 2010, it had climbed to over $150 billion just a decade later.
Fast forward to today, and cloud has become so pervasive that it’s tempting to assume that an ‘all in’ or ‘cloud only’ approach might now be the dominant contemporary migration trend. While it’s certainly true to say that cloud is key to many IT strategies, ‘cloud only’ does not, in fact, dominate, nor is it seen as considered a must-have for every relevant use case.
For example, research indicates that before the pandemic, a ‘cloud first’ strategy was the most popular approach to migration (36%), followed by a ‘preference but not commitment’ to use private cloud (26%). At the time, only 19% stated a dedicated ‘cloud only’ approach. As is now widely accepted, priorities changed significantly over the following two years or so, not least to the rise in remote and flexible working. Indeed, ‘cloud only’ strategies increased to 25%, while ‘cloud first’ decreased to 25% before going back up to 31% post-pandemic. Over the same period, ‘cloud only’ remained the same.
So, where does that leave organisations who are looking to develop their use of cloud as part of a multi-cloud or hybrid strategy? First of all, it’s important to consider the differences between the two approaches.
Multi-cloud involves the usage of multiple cloud services from different providers, including any mix of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS) options delivered by a range of vendors. For many IT leaders following this approach, the goal is to avoid vendor lock-in, to cherry-pick the best offerings from each vendor and, in doing so, create a resilient and tailored environment.
On the other hand, a hybrid cloud strategy blends private cloud with at least one public cloud service. This approach is attractive to organisations that need to keep sensitive data on a private cloud while also drawing on the extensive computing resources of a public cloud for other operations. When effectively integrated, hybrid private and public models can help ensure effective data privacy and compliance while delivering agile scalability.
The best of both worlds
Looking more specifically at the hybrid cloud model, many organisations like it because it can offer the best of worlds – both private and public. In particular, it allows users to maintain control over sensitive data by housing it on-premises, mitigating data privacy and compliance concerns. Although this is a regulatory requirement for some organisations, it doesn’t preclude them from using the public cloud for other workloads across their IT estate – a situation that has helped to promote the hybrid cloud model.
Secondly, a hybrid approach offers the inherent and affordable scalability and computing power offered by public cloud providers, which can be invaluable for those organisations managing workloads that experience varying demands. In addition, the hybrid approach often facilitates better disaster recovery solutions, as data can be mirrored between private and public execution venues, for instance, while outsourced solutions can help users find the specialist capabilities they might need.
In practical terms, there is a wide range of sectors where hybrid solutions have become extremely popular. In finance, for example, where organisations often deal with huge data volumes, a hybrid cloud allows them to maintain it securely on a private cloud while leveraging the computational power of public clouds for analytics, driving better decision-making.
Over in the digital marketing industry – a sector that relies on data analytics, customer insights and agility – public and hybrid cloud capabilities give marketing professionals the flexibility to scale their operations with ease, such as at times of peak activity. In addition, marketing teams everywhere now use cloud-based analytics tools to analyse consumer data and update campaign strategy in real time.
In this context, it’s easy to appreciate why hybrid cloud technologies are having a transformative impact on IT and business strategy. But despite its success, there remain some sectors that have been slower to adopt due to factors including regulatory constraints, migration costs and a lack of appropriate skills and experience. The healthcare sector, for example, can be comparatively cautious about cloud adoption due to stringent regulations regarding patient data. Additionally, small to medium enterprises may find the initial costs of migration prohibitive or simply decide to keep legacy infrastructure in use for as long as possible before making wholesale changes.
In the current economic climate, however, it’s important for organisations everywhere to optimise their use of cloud technologies and services to deliver the capabilities they need to stay agile and competitive. In these situations, a hybrid cloud strategy can be tailored to meet the unique needs of each organisation, putting them more in control of their IT infrastructure than ever before.
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