Hybrid Cloud Makes Sense

When talking about Cloud Computing, there 2 main categories a cloud computing environment can fall into. They are a) the public cloud - which is offered as a service via web applications/web services (usually over an internet connection). Private cloud (or internal cloud) environments are deployed inside (behind) a firewall and managed by the user organization.

In dealing with most Enterprises, it is common that private and public cloud "hybrids" consisting of multiple internal and/or external providers are the more practical option. Even though some providers of cloud services want to stick to a rigid "public cloud" offering, some are adopting the hybrid cloud option for their prospective clients.

A practical example of an enterprise client usage for hybrid cloud computing is the following. Lets take a company that has seasonal traffic, and major spikes of business during certain times of the year, yet on other times, it might only use a fraction of the computing resources. A Greeting card company might be a good example. They still have an on-going need for core computing that won't change, regardless of what time of the year it is, or what holiday is right around the corner. For example they have database servers, that need to be able to process high i/o transactions, or need high security because of the type of SOX, HIPAA, or other compliancies surrounding housing that type of data. This portion of the infrastructure may need to be in a private cloud environment, while other app servers, and web servers, may be perfect to have in the public cloud environment, with the ability to scale up on demand, as needs arise.

Even though there is a need for both environments, they all still have to communicate with one another. Hence, they need to be networked in a hybrid cloud infrastructure.

A great read on the topic is found here...

http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/why-the-hybrid-cloud-model-the-best-approach-477