Hybrid cloud is a cloud computing solution that is a combination of third-party public cloud and on-premise private cloud and involves an orchestration of both the platforms. With the change in the computing needs and expense, there’s a need to transfer the workload from a private to a public cloud platform. Therefore, we can see that a hybrid cloud computing system brings in greater flexibility in the work environment and offers more options of data deployment.

What is the structure of a hybrid cloud environment?

• In order to set up a hybrid cloud system, it is necessary to have a public infrastructure as a service, such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, or Microsoft Azure. You need a private cloud platform that is either an on-premise cloud or a private cloud hosted by the provider, and you need a good Wide Area Network connectivity to connect the two platforms.
• The enterprise cannot alter the structure of the public cloud services; hence, in order to achieve the desired compatibility with this public cloud service, the enterprise must adjust the architecture of their private cloud.
• The enterprise additionally deploys a hypervisor that is necessary for creating and supporting the virtual machines or containers in certain situations.
• In order to be able to deliver adequate and desired cloud compatibility such as resilience and reliability, automation and orchestration, chargeback and billing, and self service, the IT department will install a layer of private cloud software like OpenStack over the hypervisor.

How can an enterprise adjust the structure of their private cloud?

• In order to make the private cloud of an enterprise compatible with the public cloud platform, the enterprise must adjust the private cloud architecture.
• For this, the enterprise should implement adequate hardware in the data center, such as storage, load balancers, Local Area Network, and servers.

Why does an enterprise select public cloud services?

• An enterprise opts for public cloud services in order to access resources.
• These resources include the storage resources and compute instances or services like data analytics clusters or serverless compute capabilities.

What contributes to the success of hybrid cloud computing system?

• For the successful working of a hybrid cloud solution system, an enterprise should deploy an adequate cloud software and hypervisor, which is necessary to make the private cloud compatible to the public cloud selected.
• This guarantees proper interoperability with the services and public cloud application programming interfaces.
• This also ensures the seamless movement of workload from a private cloud to the public cloud services.
• A developer can use a combination of various services and resources over the private and public cloud services to create advanced applications.

What are the benefits of hybrid cloud computing solutions?

• An enterprise can use a hybrid cloud computing platform as a solution to divide the workload in such a manner that the private cloud platform can be used for hosting sensitive and highly critical workload, while the public cloud computing platform can be used for hosting the less critical workload, such as test and development resources.
• If the workload of an enterprise is dynamic and subject to changes, hybrid cloud computing is the best option. For instance, if the demand for a transactional order entry system increases during a particular season, the application can run in the private cloud, while making use of cloudburst to gain access to other computing resources on the public cloud.
• Also, in the case of big data processing, hybrid cloud computing solutions are desired. For instance, an enterprise can use the storage of a hybrid cloud computing to store data like sales, tests, and accumulated business, and can later use the public cloud to run analytical queries.
• An enterprise may use the private cloud to run highly critical workload, while the public cloud is used to manage the archival database. Hence, in these cases, it is best said that hybrid cloud computing solution allows the enterprise to use a mix of IT services.

What are the management tools available for hybrid cloud computing?

• An enterprise can manage the service catalogs, creation of workflow, billing, and other services associated to a hybrid cloud computing solution using management tools such as RightScale Cloud Management, Egenera PAN Cloud Director, Scalr Enterprise Cloud Management platform, Cisco CloudCenter, IBM Cloud Orchestrator, BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, Red Hat CloudForms, VMware vCloud Suite, and Abiquo Hybrid Cloud.
• However, before committing to a particular management tool, it is advisable that the enterprise test and then evaluate these potential management tools carefully in their own hybrid cloud computing platform.