Hybrid Cloud Deployments: When, Why, and What Goes Where?

I recently read an article about the top 20 hybrid dog breeds, Call me focused on my work, but it reminded me of hybrid cloud computing. From Goldendoodles to Puggles, to the American Bull Dane, the best and often most popular mixed-breed dogs seem to benefit from the strengths of both origin breeds. Dog lovers can now enjoy the smart, hypoallergenic lapdog or the strong, trainable watchdog that's just right for them!

With the hybrid cloud model, an organization can get the best of both worlds in cloud services: the higher security environment of private cloud plus the often more cost-effective benefits of public cloud, allowing the organization to create a balanced deployment that perfectly meets their needs. This can include private cloud deployment of mission-critical applications with specific security or other requirements, while solutions with less stringent needs can be added to a public cloud.

For most organizations that use a hybrid cloud architecture, private cloud can be used for the highest levels of control and security. This is often recommended for production environments, high-impact and regulated data, customized solutions that are sensitive to automatic upgrades and those that have complex workloads. On the other hand, public cloud - like Concerto's, which is based on the Microsoft Azure platform - can be used to deliver superior performance while helping to control costs. The public cloud might be used by the same corporation for demo environments, test and development environments, web front-end development, disaster recovery and applications with low-impact data that will not be impacted by automatic upgrades.

An example may help to illustrate the sort of division of data and applications that can be managed ...