With an ever-growing number of Australian IT leaders adopting cloud-based infrastructure, many still struggle with how to gain the most efficiencies from their cloud environments. Hidden costs, security issues and lack of enthusiasm from the wider company top the list of obstacles in achieving optimum cloud infrastructure. This leads many companies to approach a Hybrid Cloud strategy.
The benefits of Hybrid Cloud are undeniable. It provides access to the infinite potential of the public cloud alongside the established quality of a company’s private cloud and on premises infrastructure.
For many Australian organisations, deployment, licensing and egress costs make managing Hybrid Cloud environments challenging. Similarly, complexity, and the cost of the unknown, can create significant barriers to entry for many businesses and IT teams. Nonetheless, keeping up with consumer and employee demand is critical for IT leaders that want their businesses to succeed.
The fundamental difference between a multi-cloud and Hybrid Cloud model is the hybrid infrastructure’s ability to shift between servers on both the public and private cloud. This creates both vast possibilities for automation and potential for complications if done inefficiently.
5 Common Complications with Hybrid Cloud Infrastructures
Despite its clear advantage over single or multi-cloud infrastructures, hybrid cloud requires structure. Without methodical optimisation, there is potential for error, attack, non-compliance and conflict.
This is where infrastructure automation across the hybrid cloud environment can add value. However, the following problems must be considered when looking to automate components of your hybrid cloud environment, including:
1. Data Governance
With great data comes great responsibility, and issues of compliance grow alongside your datasets. Maintaining compliance in line with Australian legislation is the responsibility of the organisation, even when data is stored in a third-party clouds such as AWS or Azure.
The compliance issue with Hybrid Cloud infrastructure comes when incoherent and siloed systems do not communicate with each other. Data that has permission to be stored in an on-premises environment may not have permission to be transferred to the public cloud, yet somehow may find its way there through manual error.
Solution: Abstraction. Employing a single partner to unite your Hybrid Cloud environment will provide an easy-to-access interface that improves data visibility and data transfer, and also makes compliance reporting effortless.
2. Security
On top of data protection, perhaps the biggest concern for IT leaders is the lack of security on public cloud, private clouds and on-premises infrastructure. Increased data transmission frequency, more touchpoints and a wider threat attack surface puts hybrid cloud models in a higher risk category.
Solution: Hybrid Cloud-specific, automated security. Data encryption and constant verification are essential for protecting data regardless of location. Firewalls can also be automated to protect every aspect of the ecosystem consistently.
3. Costs if not optimised
Non-optimised Hybrid Cloud infrastructures are prone to unseen and hidden costs. Egress charges quickly stack up if not monitored but monitoring them is a job in itself. The continuous cycle of regulation seems as never-ending as the cloud evolution itself.
Add on-premises hardware updates and patching costs to this and it’s easy to see why optimisation through infrastructure automation is essential.
Solution: Containerisation and orchestration. To ensure all applications are compatible across your Hybrid Cloud infrastructure, package code into containers while connecting and orchestrating different tasks (including patching and updates) across a single, automated pane of glass. This packaging of code reduces manual handling, and shortens deployment time therefore incurs reduced cost.
4. Employee resistance
IT employees are often resistant to change, particularly when they are concerned about that change making their role redundant. Automation is a career-ending buzzword to some, in the context of Hybrid Cloud optimisation, and business decision-makers must be mindful of morale when approaching it.
Solution: Communication. Take time to build a business case and highlight the company-wide benefits of an optimised Hybrid Cloud strategy and how automation can take away the ‘boring tasks’ of the job.
5. Mission-critical tasks are not prioritised
If your team is spending their working day fixing broken applications and processing operational tasks, it’s unlikely they’re also taking care of the tasks most important to your department.
If mission-critical processes are being neglected, it’s time to take a new approach to your Hybrid Cloud strategy.
Solution: Mission critical system automation. Siphon off some of the most mundane maintenance tasks of your mission critical systems and enable automation of them. This will free up hours of time for your team to focus on improvements and innovation.
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One Solution: Automation through Advent One
Advent One offers an automation-first approach to Hybrid Cloud orchestration and optimisation. By first focusing on what your business does best, a partnership with Advent One is driven by you and supported by industry-leading expert consultants.
For personalised insights into how your Hybrid Cloud infrastructure can be improved, book a meeting with one of the Advent One Hybrid Cloud experts.