Managing a hybrid cloud deployment

The number of hybrid cloud deployments continue to rise, driven by organisations seeking to tap cloud to help them digitally transform.

Depending on organisational needs and industry verticals, this may entail deploying front-end services on highly scalable and rapidly deployed cloud servers, while backend databases and storage appliances or private cloud infrastructure are used to host confidential business data.

The strategy is a simple one: leverage the cloud for its elastic nature to keep costs down, and store sensitive data or those bound by compliance rules on physical infrastructure that are entirely managed by the company.

For its undeniable allure, a hybrid deployment – as with practically every facet of IT, is not entirely without risks. For a start, hybrid deployments tend to be more complex, which translates into greater effort to deploy and maintain. And depending on how they are designed, the opportunity for failures can be higher than that of a similarly structured deployment at a single location.

For example, a cloud-based authentication system used to validate multiple services across a hybrid deployment could become a single point of failure, or be disproportionately impacted by poor networking connectivity. Replicating or synchronising data across two sites are also subjected to potential failures not only at either end, but also along the connecting pipe and intervening network hardware.

Finally, the greater complexity also means that problems will likely require the input of experienced engineers or a multidisciplinary team to resolve. Likewise, implementing contingency plans such as disaster recovery and failover, working out an acceptable service level agreement (SLA) and properly delineating liabilities and responsibilities to identify faults between vendors, are all tasks that require deeper consideration in a hybrid environment.

What can enterprises do to better manage the risks of a hybrid deployment?

One vital but less-discussed aspect of a hybrid deployment would surely be the network connectivity between the various nodes that make up the hybrid cloud. Poor performance or outright failure will likely bring operations to a halt. Fortunately, there are more options than ever on this front.

One would be the use of highly reliable and secure pipes such as multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and traditional leased lines for connectivity. Enterprises also have the option of accessing private fibre connectivity between data centres, as well as connectivity offered through software-defined networking (SDN) for bandwidth that can be purchased on demand and in highly granular increments.

As organisations deploy an increasing volume of workloads on the public cloud, it is becoming increasingly important to ensure that connectivity to the cloud is not just reliable, but offers low-latency performance as well. This is possible with private cloud access, which are direct pathways designed to deliver greater security, faster speeds, and lower latency to support public cloud services.

Aside from choosing reliable cloud partners, it makes sense to build the on-premise components of the infrastructure on a solid base. This starts from a reliable colocation environment with a good track record and SLA, ensuring that crucial components such as power and cooling are well taken care of.

Singtel is a trusted partner of many leading public cloud providers and can help enterprises migrate seamlessly off from their legacy environment to a colocated hybrid-cloud environment.

As a vendor agnostic partner, Singtel provides a full suite of services from leading cloud players such as AWS, Azure, Google and others, while delivering a range of client-centric assistance including advisory, migration and management services across their infrastructure and application environments. With leading industry certifications, Singtel offers the lowest risk of adoption in setting up a hybrid cloud environment, ensuring better agility, automation and more secure operations.

In addition, Singtel offers datacenter extension services so enterprises can extend their hybrid clouds via a Private Cloud (PCaaS) offering. Through a collaboration with VMware, Singtel can offer organisations Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) services to establish hybridity between their on-premise cloud and Singtel’s Private Cloud environment.

Despite the higher complexity and risks, anchoring your hybrid environment at a trusted colocation facility such as Singtel with reliable network connectivity can go a long way towards building a modern hybrid environment that will serve your organisation well.

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