A Hybrid Cloud, by definition, is an organization that provides resources partially from the house and provides other resources externally. Technically it is a combination or mixing of both a private cloud as well as a Public Cloud.
![Hybrid Cloud]()
Figure: Hybrid Cloud
Types of Clouds, An overview
As we know there are the following three types of clouds:
- Public Cloud
- Private cloud
- Hybrid Cloud
Public Cloud
- Pay for whatever resource you need at whatever time period.
- These are provided commercially.
- Supports heavy workloads without disturbing any functionalities.
- It is very cheap for the consumers, since the hardware, application and other costs are handled by the providers.
- There is no wasted resources because consumers are charged for what they use.
- Scalability is always met here.
Private Cloud
- It is owned by a specific private group for their own use of employed, partners and their own customers.
- Highly controlled and not accessible by anyone other than allowed.
- Security, governance and compliance is highly automated.
- Similarly, the features are like a Public Cloud irrespective of security and maintenance.
- The cost is very high.
Hybrid Cloud
And here we come to our topic where the Hybrid Cloud is defined as a mix of both a Public Cloud as well as a private cloud. How much mixing is needed and we will see here what the mixing benefits are.
A Hybrid Cloud is mainly introduced for effectiveness in business flexibility and data deployment options. Many organizations have begun using Hybrid Clouds these days. Mainly the workloads are allowed to travel between public and private clouds due to computing needs and cost changes. All the cloud computing services will provide efficiency whereas a Public Cloud is very much more cost-efficient and scalable than the private clouds. Here this is the main key point where Hybrid Clouds enacts and it helps an organization to maximize their efficiency by making use of Public Cloud services for all non-sensitive data, operations and making a private cloud only for whatever security and sensitive operations are required. Combining the private cloud services with the Public Cloud services along with data centers hybrid is also called corporate computing.
Pros of Hybrid Cloud
- Scalability
Usually the Private Cloud services will have a lesser scalability due to its security, cost and compliance whereas the Public Cloud has a high scalability and moving non-ssensitive data from the private to the public will free up resources in the data centers in the Private Cloud and that increases a very high scalability for a Hybrid Cloud.
- Cost effective
Similarly the Public Cloud is very cost effective rather than Private Cloud and here the Hybrid Cloud provides cost effectiveness with the data and other sensitive operations secured.
- Security
Since there is a Private Cloud used, the data and sensitive operations are secured highly in the Hybrid Cloud.
- Flexibility
We can move out easily the non-sensitive data and manage large scalability using a Public Cloud service along with the Private Cloud. So with the availability of a large scalability using Public Cloud and security using Private Cloud an enterprise has a vast opportunity in developing for new needs.
Cons of Hybrid Cloud
- Infrastructure dependency
- Networking
- Security compliance
Target Audience of Hybrid Cloud
- Financial sector (Operations will be private and the customer maintenance will be public).
- Health care sector (Patient's records will be private and insurance will be public).
- Laws.
- Retail sales.
- Transport and so on uses Hybrid Cloud.
Conclusion
Therefore a Hybrid Cloud is an added advantage in the field of cloud computing, especially for the enterprises that need both security as well as scalability, even though there is a risk in the security in the Public Cloud. Irrespective of certain cons, organizations use Hybrid Clouds for their organizational purposes and needs.