By Jake Madders, Co-Director at Hyve Managed Hosting It’s been 13 years since Google’s then CEO, Eric Schmidt, coined the…

By Jake Madders, Co-Director at Hyve Managed Hosting

It’s been 13 years since Google’s then CEO, Eric Schmidt, coined the phrase ‘cloud computing’ and since then it has changed the landscape of both business and consumer IT. In fact, research recently revealed 77% of enterprises have at least one application or a portion of enterprise computing infrastructure in the cloud, highlighting its immense popularity.

Although some businesses will go all-in with either public or private cloud, this isn’t a model that works for everyone. Different workloads and applications are suitable for different types of cloud and this has driven the popularity of both hybrid and multi-cloud environments. But what is the difference between the two and what are the benefits that they provide?

Both hybrid and multi-clouds involve using a mixture of public and private cloud to maximise efficiency, cost and scalability – the differentiator is in how they are integrated and managed. 

Multi-Cloud v Hybrid Cloud

Multi-cloud consists of a series of different clouds that are centrally managed in a single architecture. These cloud environments can be either public cloud, private cloud or a mixture of both and are provided by a range of suppliers and therefore have to be managed internally, adding to the responsibilities of the IT team. Operating in a multi-cloud environment results in different configurations, settings, pricing plans and multiple invoices – making management and budgeting more complex and time consuming. 

In comparison, hybrid cloud is a single entity and consists of a combination of on-premises, private cloud and public cloud, working together in tandem. This is provided by one supplier and means businesses are operating within a single cloud infrastructure. As with multi-cloud, the most appropriate cloud can be used for different workloads and data. Having all of the operations within the same infrastructure unifies IT and it can therefore be managed more effectively.

The True Value of Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid cloud provides the best of both worlds for businesses and working with a managed cloud provider means that the correct workloads will always be in the most suitable environment. Public cloud will be utilised for intensive workloads and is ideal for running test and development servers, for example, and for sensitive data, the private cloud will be used. Having this all centrally managed by an experienced managed cloud provider will mean businesses can fully embrace the hybrid cloud model – avoiding the siloed approach of multi-clouds.

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