Hybrid Cloud – the gift that keeps on giving

Author: Lex Boost, CEO, Leaseweb USA

As all in the industry are aware, the rate at which cloud computing technology has been adopted has seen it firmly entrench itself as a vital platform for many organizations keen to develop innovative products and services. Many organizations are well on the way to making cloud operating systems a natural part of how any business operates, it presents great opportunities for innovation amongst businesses, especially those looking for more flexible and secure infrastructure solutions.

Analyst firm Gartner found that cloud computing ranks among the highest on its disruption scale, with these services set to continue to grow in popularity, acting as a necessary enabler for future disruptions. In the U.S., the 2018 IDG Cloud Computing study found that 73 percent of organizations have at least one application or a portion of their computing infrastructure in the cloud while 17 percent plan to do so within the next 12 months.

There are, however, some businesses that remain sceptical of cloud computing, despite the infrastructure proving to enhance or replace all parts of a business’s IT environment while promoting improved efficiency, the opportunity for expansion, and greater flexibility.

For those looking for the best of both worlds, hybrid cloud solutions have naturally become the ‘it’ thing. By combining both public and private cloud infrastructures, hybrid cloud solutions provide greater flexibility for companies seeking both hosting resources and the ability to run classified applications privately while maintaining SaaS and IaaS on a public cloud.

Many are already reaping the benefits of hybrid cloud, but if you are on the fence about making it the basis for your IT infrastructure, it is good to remember a few of its more notable benefits.

1. Easy and efficient scalability

Scaling an IT infrastructure can be extremely expensive, putting it out of reach for most small or newly-thriving businesses.

Hybrid cloud environments, however, allow businesses to scale in order to accommodate specific workloads. Businesses can implement automation rules in the cloud that ensure the ability to scale resources up and down as dictated by business demand. This customisation ensures an optimised environment that performs efficiently to take advantage of unlimited resources based on demand-driven usage.

2. What downtime? Even during disasters

Keeping your business running at all times is crucial if you want your company to succeed. Your data should still be accessible even during a disaster, but there’s more to this than simply backing up and replacing content on a cloud platform.

That’s why hybrid cloud solutions are often considered the key components in business continuity solutions. Hybrid clouds ensure critical data is replicated to a cloud in a different location, thus providing data insurance in the event of any natural or technological disaster.

3. Reducing your time to market

One of the primary reasons that organizations choose to move to the cloud is to make it easier to expand their business into new regions. Hybrid cloud platforms provide the agility needed to quickly enter new markets at affordable costs.

Companies of all sizes are able to get a jump on global initiatives, as the cost of investment is greatly reduced through on-demand self-service. Cloud resources can be automated and spun up swiftly to grow when needed without wasting any unnecessary resources. Thanks to the reductions in time and low costs of entry provided by hybrid cloud solutions, companies of all sizes can increase their competitive advantages.

4. Improved security

Although security fears are decreasing as cloud usage grows, security measures remain a top priority and an ongoing challenge that needs to be managed properly in any organization.

A private hybrid cloud system ensures you have more control over the design and architecture of the system, while providing a higher level of data security in comparison to public cloud solutions.

5. Gain the competitive edge

When it comes to innovative technologies, hybrid cloud solutions offer far more opportunities than any other type of infrastructure, providing benefits in the form of customer satisfaction, decreased costs and risks, higher revenue, and greatly expanding global market reach.

Adopting cloud solutions can give your organization a leg up on the competition, too – in fact, the IDG research indicates that more than one third of respondents (38 percent) shared that IT departments feel pressure to migrate 100 percent to the cloud to remain competitive.

Cloud adoption is giving no sign of slowing down and business that don’t embrace it in some way, shape or form will undoubtedly be left behind. But cloud should work for your business not against it. Pick the right combination of public and private cloud infrastructure for your business needs and reap the benefits of the flexibility it brings.

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About the Author

Lex Boost is the CEO of Leaseweb USA. He and his team are responsible for the development and execution of Leaseweb’s core vision and strategy across the United States.

With over 20 years’ experience in the digital industry, he has gained leadership experience from a broad range of organizations and cultures, including both B2B and B2C markets, in startups, as well as large corporations. In previous roles, he worked as the CEO of one of the largest dating websites in the Netherlands, owned by the European TV giant RTL – Bertelsmann. Prior to that, he was Head of Digital for PaperlinX, one of the world’s largest communication materials merchant, with over $6 Billion in revenues and over 6000 people worldwide. He also has extensive experience managing startup companies from 1997 to 2012, in the SaaS and Mobile application space.

He studied at Delta University in Utrecht (Faculty of Business Economics) where he earned a BA in Business Economics. When not working, he enjoy classic cars (also racing them), traveling, attending live concerts, and playing tennis.