Best Practices for Going Hybrid

Jan 30, 2017 | All Blogs, Cloud

As we’ve seen, organizations that are able to take a hybrid approach that integrates their on-premise infrastructure with the public cloud gain a number of advantages. However, this move needs to be done correctly.

It isn’t just a matter of having both on-premise and public cloud. To get the most out of these infrastructures, businesses need to ensure that their systems will not only integrate well, but will set them up well to improve performance, reliability, and the capability to grow.

To effectively deploy a hybrid on-premise and public cloud infrastructure, organizations recommend these best practices:

Understand their current IT infrastructure

Step one in any major IT infrastructure process is to fully understand all of your applications, services, and servers (both virtual and physical). Knowing where your current infrastructure is today makes it possible to get it ready for tomorrow.

Build a strong on-premise virtualization infrastructure

If your virtualization infrastructure is poorly configured or managed, with lots of VM sprawl, orphaned systems and poor utilization, it’s likely that all of these problems will be replicated in the cloud. Leading organizations leverage strong virtualization management and monitoring tools to ensure that their on-premise infrastructure is a solid base for the added cloud capabilities.

Map out your public cloud needs and the required capabilities

Cloud can be easy but it’s not simply a matter of throwing servers and applications into the cloud. Some services work well in the cloud and some don’t — public cloud adds value in some areas while not in others. Take the time to understand everything that will be used in the cloud and map out those processes to ensure an effective public cloud deployment.

Look for strong integration between on-premise and cloud

As stated earlier, ability to integrate with on-premise infrastructure is the number one criteria when businesses evaluate public cloud. With strong integration, organizations can seamlessly get the most out of both infrastructures.

Build for the future

New technologies will continue to challenge businesses and bring additional complexities to IT. Those organizations that have used the right systems to build their infrastructure will not only be able to overcome these challenges, they will be able to effectively leverage them to gain key advantages.
In addition to a strong in-house IT infrastructure, public cloud can improve an organization’s ability to scale and be agile. Flagship can help you leverage both on-premise and public cloud to be a winning organization. For more information schedule a consultation with Flagship Solutions Group.

If you liked this blog, you might also like:  Counting On “Home Field Advantage” With Private Cloud?

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