What is a Hybrid Cloud?

Hybrid Cloud Mixes Public Cloud, Private Cloud, and Sometimes On-prem

A hybrid cloud is a cloud computing model that combines private cloud and public cloud services within the same seamless infrastructure—sometimes with integration to on-premises resources as well. Allowing broad flexibility in the deployment and migration of workloads according to IT considerations and business priorities, a hybrid cloud model can offer the best of all worlds for the enterprise.

By choosing the optimal environment for each workload, organizations can speed deployment, reduce costs, and meet granular requirements for performance, security, and compliance. By complementing an on-premises infrastructure with public cloud resources, the organization can also take advantage of pay-as-you-go pricing to support seasonal spikes and other surges in demand. The ability to store data in private cloud or on-premises environments within a hybrid cloud infrastructure, rather than storing data entirely within public cloud services, can offer greater control and governance for data storage, aiding regulatory compliance.

A hybrid cloud infrastructure typically comprises a public infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or Alibaba; a private cloud, hosted either on-premises or through a third-party provider; and a wide area network (WAN) connecting these environments. While in some ways similar to a multi-cloud model, which can also encompass multiple public cloud and private cloud environments, a hybrid cloud by definition includes a private cloud environment, which is not necessarily the case with multi-cloud.

Hybrid Cloud Application Delivery

The diversity of a hybrid cloud environment calls for a new approach to application delivery infrastructure, including tools designs to support both traditional and modern applications, whether deployed on-premises or in the cloud.

A10 Networks Thunder® Application Delivery Controller (ADC) helps organizations ensure security, performance, and availability for hybrid cloud application delivery with unified load balancing, traffic management, security, and analytics across platforms. Supporting Thunder ADC is the A10 Harmony Controller which serves as a centralized management platform for both environments.