Managing Databases in a Hybrid Cloud: 8 Key Considerations
Hybrid cloud architectures play a vital role in helping enterprises migrate safely to the cloud and provide a way to meet data governance and risk management requirements for data that must stay on premises. But moving applications and the databases that support them to even a hybrid cloud requires considerable planning and testing, plus ongoing management and monitoring.
In a hybrid cloud database environment, some data is stored and managed on premises and some is moved to the public cloud. As a result, running databases in a hybrid cloud introduces new data management considerations that must be addressed to keep data secure, accurate and compliant with regulations, while also ensuring it can be processed efficiently.
A hybrid cloud combines public cloud services with traditional enterprise IT infrastructure that’s typically set up as a private cloud. The enterprise IT aspect could include servers managed directly by an organization in its own facilities or colocated in a third-party data center that’s shared with other users. Some applications are managed using familiar in-house IT processes, while others are managed through cloud-specific processes.
Hybrid cloud database deployments extend the same conception to the data itself. But the decision to go to a hybrid cloud database model should be driven by application and workload needs that call for databases to be on a hybrid cloud, said Yugal Joshi, partner at technology research advisory Everest Group. If that’s the case, hybrid architectures can provide complementary benefits to the underlying applications by streamlining access to required data.
Although they often provide lower costs and more flexibility than on-premises database systems, cloud services aren’t practical for every enterprise or application. “With increased data scrutiny, strong data gravity, workload requirements on latency, licensing complexity and data decentralization, not every data can be put on one source such as public cloud,” Joshi said. “This is where a hybrid model can add value.”
The benefits of hybrid cloud database environments are like those of hybrid clouds for applications: providing access to automated cloud services, opening new options and improving portability.
Automated cloud services. “By using a hybrid cloud to deploy databases,” explained Alexander Wurm, research analyst at advisory Nucleus Research, “organizations can reap the benefits of the modern cloud, such as regular updates and elastic scalability, without interfering with the security and reliability provided by existing on-premises infrastructure in support of mission-critical workloads.”
New options. Enterprises can also explore new options that were not practical with legacy database technology. If needs related to key variables like security, performance, quality or cost change over time, more options are available to rebalance the portfolio, said Joshua Swartz, a partner in the digital transformation practice at management consultancy Kearney.
Portability. A hybrid cloud database approach also supports data and workload portability across multiple private and public cloud services. “This, in turn, allows an organization to pick and choose coordination of data and workloads across hybrid cloud, thereby avoiding vendor lock-in, achieving cost and efficiency benefits, and the ability to grow and shrink environments to meet service demands,” reasoned Terri Sage, CTO at data management and analytics platform provider 1010data. In addition, portability can make recovery and business continuity planning easier and encourage experimentation and innovation.
Hybrid cloud architectures provide benefits that can unlock new opportunities to lower costs; however, they also introduce new security, performance, integration and data quality challenges that need to be initially addressed to maximize a hybrid cloud database strategy.
