Hybrid infrastructure

Hybrid infrastructure is the combination of cloud and on-premises resources to create a flexible and efficient system.

Features

Switching to hybrid infrastructure offers companies the following benefits:

1. Load-sharing. A pre-audit of IT within the organization highlights maximum and minimum workloads, shows the relations between computing resources, and reveals vulnerabilities. Based on the audit, the customer then moves a part of the services to the cloud, leaving some on the local hardware.
2. Scalability. The cloud allows expanding at any time, as local resources have their limitations. For example, any vendor’s current storage product line becomes outdated after 3-5 years and it’s hard to upgrade.
3. Backup. Creating backups is an integral part of any IT infrastructure. The customer can create backups locally and store them in at least two places – in the cloud and within the organization.
4. Financial component. Storing services in the cloud saves the company budget for maintenance and upgrade of the current equipment stock. Payments are made only for cloud rent.
5. Disaster tolerance. Two independent platforms, working together, ensure stable operation of companies even in case of complete failure of one of them.

Classification of infrastructure

Inside any organization, all services and solutions can be divided into 4 nominal blocks.

The first includes vital applications and services. They have to work 24*7*365 and if needed can be restored for a few seconds. The most advanced solutions and equipment are used for them.

The second block includes solutions that contain database management systems (DBMS). In this case, the DBMS are kept locally on Hi-end hardware and the application servers are moved to the cloud.

The third block is virtual machines and systems. As a rule, they aren’t resource demanding and function smoothly in the cloud infrastructure.

The final block is the core of any infrastructure in a company. For example, DNS, AD, VPN, authentication service, etc. This block is responsible for the basic functions of any infrastructure. They must be duplicated and available at all times.

In order to properly break down the customer’s infrastructure into blocks, an IT audit should be conducted. After that, some of the services and solutions are moved to the cloud, while others remain on local hardware.

Hybrid infrastructure allows companies to minimize the risks and costs of their own infrastructure, and increases the reliability and security of the organization’s services.