The cloud is becoming a must-have for modern enterprises, giving them an edge over their competitors. Making the move to the cloud has never been easier. What is the best cloud deployment model for you? Every organization has its own unique set of operational practices, infrastructure, and workloads. For this reason, it is essential to select the cloud-based hosting providers that best fits your business requirements.
Statista estimates that by 2025, the global market for cloud applications will be worth $168.6 billion. There are many types of cloud deployment, but hybrid cloud and multi-cloud are two of the most well-known.
Despite many semantic assumptions conflating the terms, both terms have real meanings. Both refer to cloud deployments incorporating multiple clouds, but they differ significantly. Here, we explore how multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments differ.
What is a Hybrid Cloud?
Hybrid clouds combine private and public cloud services with on-premises infrastructure and allow organizations to manage, orchestrate, and port applications between them. Organizations can now use a unified, distributed computing model that supports legacy and cloud-based workloads.
Pros
- Enhanced control: Many companies manage data physically in their own premises data centres or the cloud. It may be due to proprietary or security concerns.
- Flexible: Businesses can use public clouds to host and manage less commonly used data, allowing them to focus more on the data they use the most frequently on-premises.
- Disaster recovery: Public clouds can provide organizations with an additional level of security against data risks. Critical data stored only on an on-premises cloud could be affected by disaster or worse.
Cons of hybrid cloud
- Configuration challenges: Integrating public and private clouds can produce configuration errors, which may take time to fix. Integrating private and public clouds is often delayed, which can be costly.
- Deployment issues: Cloud data flows create vulnerabilities that eavesdroppers or cybercriminals could exploit. Supply-chain vulnerabilities can also expose data once a product is launched.
- Security concerns: A hybrid cloud environment is more complex than an IT infrastructure built on the cloud only. Provide management and integration services for cloud platforms, on-premises, and third-party systems.
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What is Multi-Cloud?
Multicloud computing refers to the process of utilizing multiple cloud services from different public cloud providers. Cloud providers offer a variety of unique offerings and strengths, reducing vendor lock-in risks. As a result, the cloud environment is more flexible, resilient, and reliable.
Multi-cloud architectures refer to specific architectures involving multiple cloud providers, including on-premises data centres and colocation facilities, offering a range of services, including infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and software-as-a-service (SaaS). Typically, hybrid multi-cloud architectures use multiple clouds.
Pros of multi-cloud
- Vendor Lock-In: Organizations that use multiple cloud platforms avoid becoming too dependent on one vendor. A diversified cloud strategy may enable an organization to negotiate better terms and prices.
- Enhanced Resilience: A multi-cloud solution facilitates workload distribution among multiple cloud providers. As a result, cloud providers can enhance business continuity and minimize downtime.
- Flexibility: Multi-cloud allows organizations to choose the most appropriate cloud platform for their application or workload. As a result, performance, scalability, and costs can be optimized.
Cons
- Complexity: Managing multiple cloud platforms requires time, attention, and specialized skills. It can complicate troubleshooting and increase operational overhead.
- Integration Challenges: Cloud platforms may have different APIs and architectures, making integration challenging. The development effort can be increased and compatibility issues may arise unless this is considered and planned for upstream.
- Cost: Although this environment can lower costs because organizations can select the most suitable platform for each workload, it may also increase costs due to increased management and integration needs.
Major Differences Between Hybrid Cloud & Multi-Cloud Management Platforms
Architecture
The multi-cloud architecture uses several clouds of the same type, but communication is not possible between them. Furthermore, multi-clouds are challenging to manage because there is no centralized identity, monitoring, or configuration management. In a multi-cloud environment, you can store any kind of data on multiple public clouds.
In contrast, hybrid cloud architecture combines private and public cloud infrastructure. It is common for the hybrid cloud infrastructure components to share central management in a hybrid cloud setup, including identity management, logging, monitoring, and alerting. Managing and integrating the different components becomes easier.
Management and security of data
Security and data management are crucial aspects of cloud hosting providers, particularly in regulated industries. Companies can deploy private clouds and on-premises infrastructure using hybrid cloud architectures to host sensitive data. These measures adhere to compliance regulations and protect businesses’ data assets with custom-made security measures.
Multi-cloud deployments, on the other hand, are problematic because data is dispersed among multiple cloud services. Security protocols, access controls, and encryption can mitigate risks in a multi-cloud environment.
Vendor lock-in and dependency
Organizations looking to host in the cloud are concerned about vendor services locking in and their dependence on them. By leveraging multiple cloud providers, hybrid clouds work in handling these risks while retaining autonomy over private cloud infrastructures. Using this approach, a single cloud vendor is not required, and services can be integrated based on specific needs.
Furthermore, Multi-Cloud solutions reduce vendor lock-in risks by distributing cloud services among several providers. This strategy allows companies to benefit from competitive pricing, specialized services, and innovative features while improving resilience.
Availability
An important benefit of a multi-cloud environment is its high availability. Using it, enterprises can backup their data to the cloud with a reliable standby system. Users can also migrate workloads from one cloud vendor to a different cloud vendor without experiencing any downtime.
Maintaining availability in environments of hybrid cloud solutions is still necessary since most of the workload is stored on-premises.
Cost
When a company uses multi-cloud services, no on-premises infrastructure is needed, but teams are responsible for monitoring and managing cloud costs. With a hybrid infrastructure utilizing a private cloud, costs can be effectively controlled since only one public cloud is used.
When to Choose the Best Cloud Environment for Your Business
Control and ownership are often the deciding factors when choosing a hybrid or multi-cloud strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to determining the best approach, but it should be aligned with the business’s goals and needs.
When to use a hybrid cloud: Companies that want to use cloud resources and services but are required by law or regulation to keep specific data or workloads on-premises may benefit from a hybrid cloud. An example would be a company interested in developing cloud-native applications with some workloads requiring on-premises deployment.
When to choose a multi-cloud: Businesses requiring specific services or resources from multiple clouds should opt for a multi-cloud strategy. An organization may, for example, take advantage of virtual machines and storage provided by one provider, AI/ML services from another, and SaaS applications from different providers.
Cloud architecture can’t be fit to all needs. There are different options for choosing a strategy; it’s important to understand them and choose the one that best suits the needs and goals of the business.
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Conclusion
Multi-cloud and hybrid cloud deployments better suit different use cases. While using a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud will improve efficiency, decision-makers need to understand their differences to obtain the best results. Cloud hosting service providers should help organizations determine which deployment strategy is most appropriate for their unique circumstances.
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FAQs
Common Questions About Hybrid Cloud and Multi-Cloud Management Platforms
What are four different types of deployment models?
There are public, private, community, and hybrid cloud deployment models. The deployment model is determined by the location of the environment’s infrastructure.
How does a multi-cloud strategy work?
Multi-cloud strategies enable digital transformation by transforming application design, implementation, and deployment across clouds. These strategies allow organisations to deploy apps on public, hybrid, and edge clouds based on their business needs.
How does the hybrid cloud benefit businesses?
Hybrid clouds offer the “best of both worlds.” Cloud services can be used when most beneficial, while on-premises or private clouds can be used for other functions. As a result, more flexibility is possible.
Which is the most common model for cloud deployment?
The public cloud undoubtedly dominates the market. With it, users can access a variety of cloud-based services.
Can Netflix be considered a hybrid cloud?
Hybrid clouds are used by Netflix. Hosting is done through a private cloud, and it is this private cloud that stores customer information, including payment and device details. With a hybrid cloud, companies like Netflix can take full advantage of both types of clouds.
