Hybrid Cloud: 5 Tips On How Companies Can Make Better Use Of The Cost Advantages

Many companies want to save costs with the hybrid cloud and optimize their processes. But when managing the systems, they face numerous challenges, such as the lack of cost transparency and data management.

Cost optimization and process optimization in IT environments such as hybrid cloud are still among the most significant business challenges for companies after finding qualified employees. A current study by IDC shows this. These challenges are also reflected in the respondents’ IT priorities. Here, cost savings and cost transparency and control are at the top of the agenda.

The cloud significantly supports companies in achieving their goals. Public clouds convert capital expenditures (CAPEX) into operating expenses (OPEX), and consumption-based services can also optimize the private cloud costs. In addition, the cloud promotes agile development, provides innovative technologies, and enables new products to be brought to market more quickly.

Hybrid Cloud Offers Maximum Flexibility

All cloud variants, private clouds, and public cloud offerings with SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, are now established. Half of the companies rely on the hybrid cloud, i.e., public and private cloud combination. This model offers maximum flexibility and enables the advantages of both worlds to be combined as required. Companies use the hybrid cloud most often to move applications to the most suitable environment. But so far, only a few have exploited the possibility of optimally distributing workloads in terms of costs.

The reason for this is the difficulty in reporting the costs of operating the clouds. Twenty-nine percent of those surveyed named a lack of cost transparency the most significant challenge for managing a hybrid cloud environment, followed by data management (25 percent) and the automation of workflows between the public cloud and private cloud (21 percent). With the following five tips, companies can gain more transparency and optimize the costs of their hybrid infrastructure.

Choose The Right Storage Tier

Public cloud providers offer different storage classes, so-called storage tiers. They differ in their performance, with the fastest being the most expensive. However, not all workloads require maximum speed. Up to 70 percent of the monthly public cloud costs can be saved by tailoring the tiers to actual needs.

Only data that employees access frequently and that requires low latency, high speed, and availability should be in the “hot” stories. For data that is seldom needed – such as backups or archives – less high-performance, “cold” levels are sufficient. These are up to five times cheaper. Groups can be changed at any time to respond to new circumstances.

Check Activities Regularly – Create Cost Transparency

Just because an application lands in the cloud doesn’t mean it has to stay there forever. It is worthwhile to ask regularly whether the respective environment still meets the current requirements or whether another is now more suitable or cheaper. The cloud is not a one-way street. As a 2019 study shows, 36 percent of companies plan to bring applications or sub-applications back from the public cloud to the private cloud.

That doesn’t mean they are turning away from the public cloud in general. Instead, they optimize their cloud mix to use resources as sensibly as possible. Companies should also consider proactive cost management, such as the automated use of spot instances.

Evaluate Combinations Of Different Solutions

More and more companies are starting to combine not only public clouds and private clouds but also various public clouds. So you can choose the best environment for every application. Only a few providers offer a total solution. Instead, competition, APIs, and openness are the keys to success.

Coopetition refers to the cooperation between companies that compete against each other at the same time in addition to working together. Therefore, any planning should be long-term and should be based on the demands of customers, the market, and added value. This is the best way for companies to decide whether and how to use the cloud.

Develop A Data Fabric Strategy

Organizations need uniform data management to move workloads between different clouds and exploit cost advantages quickly. It is, therefore, an excellent idea to develop a data fabric strategy. This makes it possible to provide data wherever needed, even in very unique and complex multi-cloud environments.

A data fabric consists of an architecture that connects endpoints in on-premises and cloud environments and a portfolio of different data services that can be applied to all connected endpoints. This simplifies data management considerably, and IT managers always have an overview and control of all company data.

Use Monitoring Solution

To avoid problems and to resolve bottlenecks as quickly as possible, IT infrastructures can be continuously monitored. A cloud monitoring solution like NetApp Cloud Insights creates complete transparency in the public cloud and an on-premises environment. The answer is hosted in the cloud and provides visually prepared real-time data on availability, performance, and the entire IT infrastructure. The integrated service Active IQ identifies AI-supported risks so that problems can be resolved before they even occur.

The tool also gives recommendations for IT optimization. Organizations can increase the efficiency of their infrastructure and reduce support costs. By gaining transparency in their hybrid cloud and ensuring consistent data management, companies can distribute workloads across the various clouds cost-effectively. You can master challenges in hybrid cloud management and take better advantage of the broadcast, flexible infrastructure.