Benefits of Hybrid Cloud Architecture
Hybrid cloud architecture is the combination of on premises resources (private) and cloud resources (public). It is a good approach while the company has on premises resources and migration of these resources will take long time (Morgenthal, 2015). Therefore, the implementation of new resources must be selected for cloud. The resources recommended for cloud can be data storage, management tools, network applications and security tools. Hybrid cloud deployment needs the following:
- IaaS platform like AWS, Azure or Google to implement public infrastructure
- Private cloud
- WAN in between these two environments
Hybrid cloud architecture
The reasons of recommendation for hybrid cloud architecture for Regional Gardens are (JARIWALA, 2013):
- Flexible architecture
- Security of most concern applications and data can be ensured by deploying them on cloud. Devices are configured in such a way that only authorized machines can access the data.
- To implement an efficient operation process in business hybrid cloud is the most flexible approach(Ahmed, 2017).
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Benefits of hybrid cloud |
Limitations of hybrid cloud |
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Cost saving |
Dependency on infrastructure |
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Improved security |
Security issues, as it must be ensured that public and private cloud comply with the security policies of company (Tracy, 2016). |
|
Enhanced agility of organization |
Efficient and effective network for smooth data transfer |
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Improved accessibility |
As per the setup cost of public cloud, private cloud is costlier. |
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Efficient business continuity as the business will continue in case of failure also. |
Integration between public and private cloud’s applications must be ensure as sometimes data resides in public cloud and the application resides in private cloud and in case of improper integration between clouds will lead the discrepancy. |
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Hybrid cloud architecture provides more efficient opportunities for innovations in business plan |
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In lack of hybrid cloud, the scalability of IT resources will be very expensive and efficient but cloud architecture makes it very simple and efficient |
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It provides better options for risk assessment in which company can test their resources in condition of workload. |
According to Hubbard D W, the risk management is prioritization of risks and the controlling measures. It is a systematic approach which starts from planning of assessment, designing some actions, minimizing the risk reduction plan, evaluating the effectiveness of proposed plan and then with the help of feedback planning future aspects.
Hybrid cloud deployment must be the next step after the risk assessment analysis. The most important thing is that company must appoint some sophisticated IT persons having skills to control end to end expected problems and IT architecture must be designed in a managed way. Some of the risks related with hybrid cloud strategy are (Shacklett, 2016):
|
Risk |
Description |
Severity |
|
Improper coordination between clouds |
It happens in case of mismanagement in between private and public cloud’s services and its handling |
Low |
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Improper management of data storage mechanism |
Confidential data must be saved on public aloud and less important data must be saved on private cloud |
Medium |
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Inefficient handling of data security and privacy techniques |
Security of data cannot be ignored as it can disrupt of the business operations seriously |
High |
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Internet security tools |
To access the resources of cloud, insecure use of Internet will increase the probability of risks in cloud architecture. To prevent this, the bandwidth of data communication must be controlled. |
High |
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Data backup and recovery tools |
In case of any unexpected shutdown, the cloud must have the procedure of recovery and risk management so that business can go on without any interruption. |
Medium |
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SLA |
Before migrating business on cloud, the agreement between organization and cloud service provider must be signed and all the software and applications must be licensed. The contract must have a clear picture of pricing and all other conditions. |
High |
To implement information security while migrating on hybrid cloud, business organizations must follow some guidelines, such as:
- Selection of right public cloud service provider: It ensures the method of protection to be followed, the data recovery and backup mechanism, server administration and authentication of virtual machines(Kaushal, 2017).
- It must be understandable by the IT experts where the area of vulnerability in business is and how to control it. Technical understanding of environment is expected in continuous way. It can be done by following a regular process of auditing.
- The security policies of organization must ensure the compliance and the alternative ways to keep backup and recovery of information.
- The information security can be on risk, if the selection of public cloud service provider is not done cautiously. This is the responsibility of IT department of organization that the security parameters must be managed efficiently and consistently(Shacklett, 10-hybrid-cloud-risk-areas-that-the-enterprise-must-manage, 2016).
- The information exchange must be done in encrypted manner, for this antivirus programs or Firewall can be implemented in business. The selection of antivirus must cover DoS attack, IP protection, Defined SLAs and preventive measures about malicious employees.
Business continuity plan is a procedure which ensures the existence of business in extreme conditions. The conditions may vary from the loss of a specific key to the destruction of resources but the manager of business must prepare for any condition and follow guidelines to run business (Campbell, 2016).
As the hybrid cloud adopt the advantages of both public and private cloud, the business organization can deploy the critical applications on the private cloud and less complex applications on public cloud. Private cloud provides enhanced security whereas the public cloud provides the cheap business continuity plan. Private cloud encrypts the data through passwords and firewall can prevent the unauthorized data packets to communicate in the network of business. It increases the cost of business. Data security and recovery ensures the business continuity and hence placed in the private cloud.
To prepare the business continuity plan below information must be ensured:
Data must be kept in form of backup which impacts on business analytics and risk assessment.
Data recovery point must be maintained
The contact list of all the employees, stakeholders, contractors and suppliers must be maintained.
The steps to be followed in case of problems must be kept.
Limitations of Hybrid Cloud Architecture
Remote server administration is a component of windows server which is used to manage remote resources of network. It was firstly introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2. With the help of RSAT the administrators can run special programs called snap-ins which can control the applications of other computers. This software also includes Hyper-V management and updates related with clusters. This software is compatible with every version of Windows OS. In hybrid cloud, the network security is the most essential part of strategy and Firewall is by default the most important tool of RSAT. By default in RSAT, this feature is on. We recommend the Windows 2008 Server core edition for the hybrid cloud of regional gardens as it can be manageable in many ways through MMC (Khanin, 2008):
Server roles: if this option is installed, the ports are opened by default and there is no need of extra configuration. If MMC snap-in is installed for a specific role then the user can directly control the role at server core.
Domain joined: Till the domain is created, the settings are changed and the remote management is possible.
Workgroup server: The latest scenario, which tests windows 2008 server. To allow the remote access, we must provide the permission for firewall configuration.
In order to access cloud resources, SLA is must in between cloud service provider and cloud consumer. It ensures the quality of services. It is a detailed explanation of various points in form of checklist, which contains almost all the parameters to define a satisfactory service level. In case of IaaS and PaaS the client can use the hardware and software resources, the client can change the settings regarding the OS control, storage location and applications but it does not provide the authorization to client to administer the cloud. The dynamic nature of cloud is the main cause of interruption in quality of services which can be manages through SLA.
Some of the advantages of SLA are:
- Increases Customer’s satisfaction level
- Improved relationship between service provider and consumers
- Ensures the level of quality
- Enhanced performance
- Fault tolerance can be improved
SLA management is an integral process which is done on various levels like:
|
Level of operation |
Description |
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Business level management |
At business level management the authentication and authorization parameters are decided and signed by both the parties service provider and client |
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Service level management |
Following are the main points should be done at service level management: SLA creation Monitoring Maintenance Reporting assessment |
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Network level management |
Network monitoring which can be in form of active monitoring and passive monitoring |
With the latest innovation of Microsoft’s Amazon web services, we can easily migrate most of the applications of public cloud of business organization, covering IT infrastructure, expenses of daily routine, administrative tools etc. It will increase the performance of applications and provide much awaited security to applications (Omran, 2017). One of the application which is to be migrated on AWS is Email instance. If it is done, then accessibility of this application will increase in many folds. The main advantages of migrating Emails to AWS are:
- Automate the process
- Minimum bandwidth required
- No replicate data present
- Speed up the process
- Available 24×7
The migration process may include following steps:
Overview of migrating Email on AWs
Before migrating any application to the cloud, it must be analyzed properly. It is the better approach that migration should start with the small piece of application. Some other issues which might occur mean while the process are:
Cloud finance: Basically it depends on the choice of organization, in some cases, the company don’t want to migrate on premise application to cloud, as it will decrease the overall control of company on to application. On the other hand some companies prefer cost cutting and they migrate the application to the cloud (YIGAL, 2016).
Security and Availability issues: It is the main concern in migration process, as in the case of private cloud, the security will depend on cloud service providers, but it can be achieve through specifying the rules and guidelines at the time of agreement.
Need Re-hosting or Rebuilding application: Before migrating any application to the cloud, the IT managers must prepare the data which is to be deployed on AWS. Sometimes the same application can be redeployed on a totally different hardware configuration it is called as redeploying the application.
References
Ahmed, J. (2017, october 12). top-5-reasons-go-hybrid-cloud. Retrieved from www.mdsc1.com: https://www.mdsc1.com/blog/top-5-reasons-go-hybrid-cloud/
Campbell, M. (2016, January 15). 7-hybrid-cloud-backup-and-business-continuity-mistakes. Retrieved from www.networkcomputing.com: https://www.networkcomputing.com/data-centers/7-hybrid-cloud-backup-and-business-continuity-mistakes/341570530
JARIWALA, D. (2013, December 16). 3-disadvantages-hybrid-cloud. Retrieved from www.techstagram.com: https://www.techstagram.com/2013/12/16/3-disadvantages-hybrid-cloud/
Kaushal, R. (2017, February 20). deployment-and-implementation-of-hybrid-cloud-for-an-enterprises.html. Retrieved from blog.calsoftinc.com: https://blog.calsoftinc.com/2017/02/deployment-and-implementation-of-hybrid-cloud-for-an-enterprises.html
Khanin, M. (2008, April 27). configuring-the-firewall-on-server-core-for-remote-management. Retrieved from itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com: https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/network-administrator/configuring-the-firewall-on-server-core-for-remote-management/
Morgenthal, J. (2015, April 30). 7-rules-hybrid-cloud. Retrieved from dzone.com: https://dzone.com/articles/7-rules-hybrid-cloud
Omran, A. (2017, March 14). aws-server-migration-service-server-migration-to-the-cloud-made-easy. Retrieved from aws.amazon.com: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/apn/aws-server-migration-service-server-migration-to-the-cloud-made-easy/
Shacklett, M. (2016, April 7). 10-hybrid-cloud-risk-areas-that-the-enterprise-must-manage. Retrieved from www.techrepublic.com: https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-hybrid-cloud-risk-areas-that-the-enterprise-must-manage/
Shacklett, M. (2016, April 7). 10-hybrid-cloud-risk-areas-that-the-enterprise-must-manage. Retrieved from www.techrepublic.com: https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-hybrid-cloud-risk-areas-that-the-enterprise-must-manage/
Tracy, P. (2016, September 22). hybrid-cloud-iot-tag31-tag99. Retrieved from www.rcrwireless.com: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20160922/big-data-analytics/hybrid-cloud-iot-tag31-tag99
YIGAL, A. (2016, March 15). 6-key-considerations-migrating-aws. Retrieved from devops.com: https://devops.com/6-key-considerations-migrating-aws/
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