If you read the sales pitches from the major operators, you'd think that the hybrid cloud was the solution to all the IT department's problems. With its elasticity, scalability and cost, this model combining private and public clouds combines the best of both worlds. On closer examination, however, the reality is more complex, and other models are worth exploring.
After an initial period of evangelism about the private cloud, the trend is now towards the hybrid cloud. Buoyed by spectacular use cases such as Netflix, Deezer and Spotify, hybridisation of the information system is supposed to provide the IT Department with all the flexibility and agility it needs to meet business challenges. On the one hand, I control most of my IS on a private cloud, and on the other, in the event of temporary scalability or projects that need to be deployed quickly, I go and find resources on a public cloud.
This model seems to be a virtuous one for IT Departments. All the more so given the disappointments of the private cloud model. In most cases, the promise of the private cloud has not been kept. Companies have chosen this model to keep data in-house, but the promise of the cloud is elasticity, which is the antithesis of the private cloud. When a new project has to be developed quickly to meet business needs, the IT Department realises the difficulty as soon as it has to purchase and integrate additional resources. Faced with very high workloads that are limited in time, the IT Department finds itself out of step with the time taken by the business, which demands ever greater responsiveness.
The illusion of cost control
Faced with these unfulfilled promises, publishers are trying to offer an alternative in the form of the hybrid model, which allows project overflow to be dealt with by using public resources on demand. When IT Departments come up against the walls of scalability and scalability in different business areas, they turn to the public cloud with the promise of optimising costs. It's a promise that's hard to keep, depending on usage: how can consumption be predicted? How can you predict the bandwidth needed to feed databases? How do you know what these resources will ultimately cost?
Software unsuited to hybridisation
This difficulty is compounded by a second one: unsuitable software. A logistician with an influx of traffic during the Christmas period may think that the hybrid cloud is the magic solution for managing the additional workload in his ERP. But that's just wishful thinking. The major ERPs on the market are not designed for this type of operation. The same is true of most legacy applications. Only web-based applications fit this model. This explains why publishers are highlighting Netflix, Spotify and Deezer as examples of hybrid cloud usage. Start-ups with web-oriented architecture and developed as such.
On the other hand, the vast majority of French companies often have to deal with their imposing CRM, invoicing, logistics and management software. Legacy software whose development does not lend itself well to this architecture model.
Other routes are possible
The cause is clear: the web-oriented architecture of Netflix or Deezer is not representative of the typical information system of a French company, whether it's an SME or a large group. Faced with this choice, does the IT Department have any alternatives?
A number of innovative players, including Cloud Temple, have developed solutions that combine the best of both worlds, offering the equivalent of a private cloud with the characteristics of a public cloud. These players have their own data centres, their own infrastructures, very large volumes, redundancy, etc. With this type of structure, the IT department benefits from the advantages of a private cloud. With this type of structure, the IT Department benefits from the same service commitments as those offered by Amazon or Google. In other words, pay-as-you-go with the necessary elasticity. The idea is to always have unallocated resources immediately available for the customer.
When it comes to making a choice, the IT department will need to think first and foremost about its use case. Coupled with the history of its IS, usage will dictate the choice, which is not necessarily the hybrid cloud promoted by the marketing hype.