What to do when a ‘cloud-first’ strategy doesn’t meet all of your IT needs. 
Date Published: June 5, 2024

As businesses grow, their data processing and storage requirements can expand at an explosive rate, and as they grapple with the volume, velocity, and variety of data, many have turned to public cloud solutions to provide easily scalable infrastructure. Whilst this scalability gives businesses the ability to grow and manage increased demand, some businesses discover that a ‘cloud first’ strategy doesn’t work across their entire IT infrastructure. There can be several reasons for this, including legacy applications, which simply cannot run on public cloud infrastructure, and data sovereignty requirements, which mean that the data is subject to the laws and governance structures of the country in which it is collected or stored, which cannot always be guaranteed in public cloud environments.

Colocation data centres can form part of the hosting solution here, creating a hybrid hosting environment where legacy (non-cloud) and governance applications sit in the physical infrastructure of a colocation data centre and apps that require the elasticity of cloud sit in the public cloud environment.

Hybrid data centre solutions are uniquely positioned to offer this combination of security and elasticity, ensuring that your infrastructure can adapt as your business scales.

Benefits of hybrid data centre solutions

Adapting to Growth with Hybrid Infrastructure

A hybrid hosting infrastructure merges the high control and security of on-premise/colocation infrastructure with the limitless expansiveness of cloud services. This symbiotic combination allows for growth that is both manageable and cost-effective.

Adaptable Infrastructure: Whether dealing with seasonal spikes or steady growth, hybrid models allow for rapid expansion or contraction of resources as needed.

Scaling for Data: As data ingestion rates increase, hybrid solutions facilitate the seamless accommodation of larger datasets without the need for constant physical upgrades.

Scaling for App Workloads: Applications have diverse requirements; some need more memory, others require more processing power. Hybrid data centres support the dynamic allocation of these resources, ensuring optimal application performance.

 

Cost Savings with Hybrid Data Centre Solutions

Hybrid data centre solutions are changing the financial dynamics of modern businesses. By leveraging the power of shared resources and optimised utilization, businesses are experiencing a dramatic reduction in both capital and operational expenses.

Slashing Capital Expenditures

Shared resources are at the heart of hybrid data centres, substantially decreasing the need for upfront investments. Instead of bearing the full cost of infrastructure, businesses can tap into the economies of scale and share the expenses with other users – a move that translates into reduced capital expenditures and a lighter financial burden on your balance sheet.

More predictable costs

Asanti’s commercially flexible solutions offer a range of models, designed to suit the requirements of your business, ranging from fixed monthly charges to PAYG options, offering you the chance to have more accurate and predictable cost projections.

 

How do you know if a hybrid hosting solution is right for your business?

There will be instances in organisations where public cloud infrastructure is not suitable for all applications required both now and in the future operation of the business. For example, legacy applications used for inventory monitoring, or applications used for financial trading, or the processing of personal data can often require that data resides in a particular country in adherence to data sovereignty laws.

 

To understand which solutions are right for your business, there are three things a business should consider as part of the evaluation process;

  1. Invest time and resource, into understanding the role and requirements of IT systems and the applications used by each department within your business.
  2. Understand what the business strategy looks like for the next 3-5 years, to ensure any solutions are sufficiently future proofed
  3. Once these elements are understood, you can start to build out a hosting infrastructure designed to support the growth needs of the business, rather than simply adopting a ‘cloud-first’ strategy to force cloud adoption.

 

Embrace the Future with Hybrid Data Centre Solutions

Hybrid data centre solutions are increasingly being adopted by businesses. The integration of on-premises hardware with cloud services ensures not only improved flexibility and data sovereignty but also provides robust options for disaster recovery and business continuity. With automation and orchestration, hybrid data centres drive efficiency and performance, tailored to your unique workload optimization and energy sustainability goals.

Transitioning to a hybrid data centre can revamp your entire technological landscape, making your data more manageable, your services more reliable, and your business more competitive in today’s digital economy.

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