How Is Networking for Hybrid Cloud Environments Different?

In a hybrid cloud environment, you link a private cloud (or clouds) to the public cloud (or clouds). You get the safety and privacy of the private cloud (as well as the low, immediate latency) and the resources and accessibility of the public cloud. At the same time, it means that you need to network your own server bank into a public cloud solution (such as Microsoft Azure, AWS or Google Cloud Services).

So, how does networking shift when you’re creating a hybrid cloud environment? What do you need to be prepared for? What could be the potential pitfalls?

Let’s start with the most obvious…

1. You need to manage a private cloud and a public cloud.

Effectively, that means you will have a public infrastructure-as-a-service platform (such as Microsoft Azure) alongside an on-premises data center or server bank. Hybrid cloud networking provides the advantages of both private and public cloud solutions, but, when not used effectively, it can also provide the disadvantages of both. For instance, the on-premises data center requires in-person maintenance, hardware updates and in-person troubleshooting.

Both these solutions have to be networked together, and through an adequate connection, at that.

2. Your ISP and failover solutions matter.

On your private cloud, you will have low latency and solid connectivity. It’s important that your public cloud and the connections between your private and public cloud be the same. Ideally, you should have multiple fast, dedicated lines available. And you may not even have them both through the same ISP if you’re concerned about having a failover connection.

The cloud can be complicated without expertise, and, in terms of failover solutions, it’s also important to think about system architecture and your hybrid cloud network diagram. If one part of your cloud goes down, will it all go down? What are your contingencies? As your system becomes more complex and more reliant on other systems, you need to ensure that the entirety of your hybrid network won’t go down en masse.

3. You need to enhance the security of your data transmission.

When your public cloud and private cloud talk to each other, all your data should always be encrypted through SSL or TLS. While this is simple enough, it’s something that can be forgotten when it comes to hybrid cloud security.

On a private network, the data is all over your LAN or WAN. In a public network, the data is already being encrypted through the IaaS service. But when you integrate your local network with your public cloud, more work may need to be done to ensure the transfers are encrypted and secure. And you may need an expert in hybrid cloud network security to achieve a balance.

More than that, you should locate your data intelligently. You need to make sure that your data is located where it needs to be to reduce the amount of data being transferred. Realistically, if data continually has to be transferred from your private cloud to your public cloud, it should probably be on the public cloud; it’s not gaining any benefit to being in the private cloud if it’s constantly being transferred out.

4. You will probably increase your costs relative to your other networking solutions — initially.

The adoption of a hybrid solution is going to be more expensive. But, if handled correctly, it will ultimately be more affordable to run. By offloading your processing-intensive systems to the public cloud, you should be able to reduce the amount of processing power and data storage you need in your on-premises server banks. And by utilizing the privacy and security of your on-premises server banks, you should be able to reduce the services needed for your public cloud.

Be prepared for the initial costs to be higher, however. Your tech advisor can walk you through the total cost of ownership for each system (public, private and hybrid) and explain the best solution for your company.

If you don’t architect your hybrid cloud environment right, it’s possible that it could become more expensive than either solution overall. It’s important to optimize the resources used on your public cloud while still maintaining a limited inventory of on-premises hardware.

5. You may need a networking expert.

Cloud technology is still relatively new, even if (at this point) it may seem like a solid industry standard. Compared to networking in general, however, it’s in its infancy. Cloud hybrid technology is even newer and more of a niche. Not every networking expert understands cloud hybrid technology. Not every cloud expert understands cloud hybrid technology.

And if you have your private infrastructure being managed by one party and your public infrastructure managed by another, you’re just asking for problems.

It’s critical to get outside help if you’re trying to adopt a hybrid network. Hybrid networks are extremely beneficial to many organizations, which is why they’re being adopted at such a rapid pace. But they’re also very complex — more complex than a public and a private network combined.

An MSP can help. Contact Red River today to learn more about hybrid cloud environments, how they can help you and how you can make the leap.