Hybrid Cloud Journey: What New Users Can Expect from this Best-of-Both-Worlds Environment

Today, a company is only as good as its people and its technology. Technology is meant to work for you.

The right environment, whether on-premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid of both, should support your business, enhance your processes, and help you achieve your goals.

When researching what type of environment is right for your business, it’s important to first ask yourself the following questions:

What are you trying to focus on and accomplish?
What problems are you trying to resolve?
How can your applications, workload, and data best support your business?

The right environment will depend entirely on which service provides the best fit, features, OEM alignment, and price to meet each business’ requirements.

Understanding Your Options: Why Hybrid Cloud is Often the Best Fit

Here are the computing environment options that businesses can consider today:

Data center/on-premises storage (Private Cloud): This type of storage means your company’s server is hosted within your organization’s infrastructure and usually physically onsite.

Cloud computing (Public Cloud): This is the delivery of computing services (including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence) entirely via the Internet.

Hybrid cloud: This is a type of cloud computing that combines on-premises infrastructure (or a private cloud) with a public cloud and allows data and apps to move between the two environments.

With so much recent information surrounding the cloud, there are still a few common misconceptions we see. Many people still think of the cloud as a destination, but in reality, it’s an operating model.

The cloud is not new, although it has progressed significantly in recent years, in part due to the
pandemic. Despite some suggesting that a cloud-first position is best, transitioning fully to the cloud is not always the answer or even an option for some businesses. Data centers are still very much relevant for certain needs and still a requirement for some. This has led the majority of our customers to adopt a hybrid cloud environment to best support their processes.

Cloud Migration Challenges: What New Users Can Expect

Technology is synonymous with change and the cloud is always doing just that: updating and changing. While transitioning to the cloud offers several benefits, including flexibility, scalability, and in some scenarios, increased security, there is a learning curve for new users. This is usually the most significant challenge for new adopters of the cloud.

Pricing may also make cloud-potentials hesitate. Once customers understand the features and benefits they will experience in the cloud, pricing often makes much more sense. Others may have a hard time understanding where they are gaining efficiency and why this is a better option.

Even if you have both the cloud and an on-prem environment, users will be able to manage everything from one, single location. A hybrid solution offers the same governance, structure, security measures, and policies across the board.

Next Steps: Which Environment is Right for You?

Where you choose to host your applications and data can have a significant impact on your business’ success and your customers’ experience and there is frequently more than one right option. Everyone is in a different phase of their hybrid cloud journey, and Arraya can help offer the blueprint of what steps make the most sense for you next.

Contact an Arraya expert today to learn more about what environment best suits your needs. Or, to learn more about hybrid cloud computing, check out the latest from Arraya Insights Radio: