Besides public and private (on-premises) cloud solutions, the hybrid cloud is the third option that bridges the gap between the two. Despite the public cloud service market reaching the worth of more than $200 billion, many companies are also using on-site (private) clouds. On-site cloud is the best option for industries with strict workflow needs or those highly regulated. Hybrid cloud solutions allow enterprises of all sizes to take advantage of the public cloud scalability and flexibility without sacrificing security or performance. Before utilizing the hybrid cloud, here’s what you should know to organize and run it efficiently at scale.

• What it will take to scale

What happens when a company needs to scale their cloud usage? For example; you’ve deployed an application and now see that it needs more capacity. Cloud bursting enables you to use the cloud’s size when you need it while managing to keep everything behind your firewall when you don’t. To keep the data secured in either location, you have to engineer it. It’s a challenge that creates more work, but the benefits outweigh the problems. That’s why it’s crucial to come up with a well-defined hybrid cloud strategy and know how to accommodate the change and scale involved with having applications within external and internal cloud environments.

• Compatibility across different infrastructure levels

Ensuring compatibility across varying degrees of infrastructure can come as a significant issue when building a hybrid cloud environment. There are dual levels of support which will probably need to run different stacks. Will you need to learn to use new tools or can you manage both using the same ones? There are tools in development (such as Azure Active Directory) that will provide companies with more inclusive governance and security platform for the hybrid cloud.

• Securing control

Control is a critical issue because a hybrid cloud requires due integration across public and private domains. Enterprises need to find a way to control their infrastructure and customers’ personal information to minimize security risks. Also, they need to consider how to manage their operational processes to optimize customers’ experiences and the use of in-house resources.

• Hybrid cloud security

For an enterprise building and scaling a hybrid cloud strategy, safety is always a top consideration. We are talking about securing and monitoring information as it enters and leaves the cloud (or even the country) while ensuring data integrity. The data traverses several infrastructure boundaries, and if not properly secured, there will be more risks to the enterprises. Create detailed security policies, review them for relevancy, and enhance them as needed to match the requirements of a hybrid cloud environment. Your infrastructure designs need to be carefully tested across all integration points to ensure operational compliance, and they must account for the security policy.

• Recovery and backup strategy

It is essential to be prepared for potential disaster and have a transparent process in place. Enterprises must plan a recovery strategy that will work across their environments, that is known, clear, and easy to follow. It’s better to be prepared for unfortunate events of a disaster so you can stay in control of a situation and get up and running as quickly as possible.

• Develop a set of best practices

To govern your hybrid cloud environment the right way, you’ll need to develop a set of best practices. It’s typically the final challenge of hybrid cloud implementation. Start by targeting cloud computing essentials:

• Broad network access
• On-demand self-service
• Rapid elasticity
• Resource pooling
• Measured services

Also, enterprises need to develop practices that will help enhance their task automation and communicate the benefit to their employees. Also, take time into account as a critical factor – ideal cloud implementation occurs in measured stages.

• Determine the goals you want the hybrid cloud to help you achieve

When picking your cloud services, understand what business objectives and goals you want it to fulfill. It’s not enough to choose a service and go with it. Take your enterprise’s strategic IT plan, map it out for the next few years, and think about what services you could be using in the years to come. Next, you should align your objectives and goals with the necessary infrastructure, systems, resources, and applications necessary.

• Containerization

Today, containerization is a hot topic that’s much discussed in the IT industry. It’s a strategy that allows for better application support and movement and is considered to be the most significant advantage of the hybrid clouds. Containers are similar to virtual machines. However, virtual machines take up a lot of space because they complete instances of servers. On the other hand, containers are small – they function as small building blocks that can form complete cases. They provide an enhanced capability for application support and movement which allows developers to streamline application development and delivery.

Each enterprise is different, so there’s not an out-of-the-box hybrid cloud environment that works for every enterprise. That’s why it’s necessary to have a scalable cloud communications system that can change in line with your organization and market changes. There are factors to consider, like reliability, security, features, cost, and compatibility, before you start building your hybrid cloud environment. The needs of a business today could be different from what it will need a year from now.