15 December 2014 1 Posted by Paul Burns
Hybrid
The term “hybrid” has been used for a long time in IT. Consider “hybrid server environments.” People used to say they had a hybrid server environment when they used a mix of x86 and RISC servers. The same terminology was adopted to refer to a combination of x86 servers from different vendors. Still more used it in reference to servers running a mix of Linux and Unix operating systems – or even a mix of Linux, Unix and Windows. Then, when x86 virtualization emerged, hybrid server environments became defined by a combination of physical and virtual servers.
In some cases, “hybrid” has even suggested a mix of all of the above. For example, “We run a hybrid server environment with Dell and HP x86, Sun SPARC, Linux, Solaris, Windows, Xen and VMware.”
Hybrid Cloud
Several years ago – at the peak of the debate about whether private clouds were real clouds – the term “hybrid cloud” became popular. At first it seemed to indicate an integrated combination of a private and public IaaS cloud (or even other types of IaaS clouds, such as a community cloud). Then it seemed to suggest any on-premises IT environment – whether private cloud, a virtualized environment or a bare metal environment – integrated with a public IaaS cloud.
Hybrid IT
In recent years, the term “hybrid IT” has gained traction and is often used synonymously with “hybrid cloud” to mean any mix of on and off-premises infrastructure. For example, enterprises are considered to have a hybrid IT environment if they used both on-premises data centers as well as off–premises data centers, such as hosting environments, colocation centers or public clouds. Hybrid IT has also evolved to mean a mix of on-premises and off-premises services (not just infrastructure) – thereby including SaaS in addition to IaaS.
The reality is that the term “hybrid” is such a good modifier that we see it used again and again, in any scenario that makes sense at the moment.
Colocation
Today’s definition of “hybrid IT” includes colocation services. Colocation providers lease space in a shared data center and provide all the necessary infrastructure – including power, cooling, and network connections – to support production IT systems. Because the data centers are fully managed, IT organizations can offload facilities management responsibilities and avoid significant capital spending.
Colocation Benefits:
Colocation providers architect their data centers with greater redundancy for network and power infrastructure, and tend to offer more network connectivity options than most enterprise data centers. They also emphasize physical security by implementing multiple layers of authentication, including both physical and digital measures. Because so many customers use colocation to protect IT assets from disasters, providers take into account proximity issues, such as natural and manmade hazards, and locate their data centers appropriately.
While cloud computing is helping shift IT spending away from some services – such as dedicated and shared hosting – it seems to be driving colocation spending growth. IT organizations have realized that public clouds are not suitable for every application, whether due to compliance, specialized hardware dependencies, or the need for direct physical control over the IT environment. Colocation is a great alternative for overcoming these challenges.
When workloads are placed in a colocation environment rather than a cloud environment, they can still gain some of the benefits associated with cloud computing. For example, colocation increases geographic reach to end users and makes it easy for IT organizations to expand (and contract) data center space as needed. Because services are pay-as-you-go, colocation also enables enterprises to make the critical shift from CapEx to OpEx spending.
As more enterprises graduate to using multiple types of off-premises infrastructure, colocation providers are also beginning to offer public cloud services. Among other benefits, this provides a hybrid IT environment without the need to own or maintain private data centers.
The New Center of Hybrid IT
For many companies, colocation services are quietly establishing themselves as the central component of their hybrid IT strategy. There are a number ways that companies are doing this, including:
- Making colocation their core IT environment by replacing on-premises data centers with colocation, and connecting to external public clouds through high-speed private networks and cross connects.
- Deploying hardware and/or a private cloud in a colocation center, and then connecting to the colocation provider’s own public cloud services to enable elasticity and scale-out cloud bursting via low-latency interconnects.
- Deploying hardware and/or a private cloud in a colocation center, to enable compliance in situations where data must reside in a single-tenant environment, and then connecting to cloud applications through secure, private, low-latency connections.
- Using a managed private cloud in a colocation center to enable a variety of public cloud benefits with single-tenancy, while taking advantage of the service provider’s cloud expertise and management capabilities.
Colocation is increasingly important for hybrid IT strategies. For many, it will become the center of their hybrid IT strategy. Are you currently using colocation? Is it something you are considering for your hybrid IT strategy? Leave us a comment below.
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Reader comments
Collocation
Posted by Kenneth Johnson
Great article and spot on. This statement strikes me:
“IT organizations have realized that public clouds are not suitable for every application, whether due to compliance, specialized hardware dependencies, or the need for direct physical control over the IT environment. Colocation is a great alternative for overcoming these challenges.”
It seems to me that the only remaining challenge to full cloud IaaS adoption is hardware dependency–primarily on ancient platforms. AWS and others have completely solved the compliance problem and the need to exercise direct physical control is a vestigial structure from a less-evolved age. Hybrid cloud environments, though they have gained traction, will eventually lose out to full IaaS models, which are cheaper and faster to provision.
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