Cloud computing has certainly caught on among business owners. No surprise there: the cloud offers more computing power, cheaper storage, seamless scalability and the simplicity that comes with someone else taking care of your servers.
But there’s a catch. To take advantage of cloud software and infrastructure, you’ve got to give up some control over your data … Or do you?
Have your cloud and your privacy too
Here’s the thing: not all clouds are the same. There’s the public cloud, the one with which we’re most familiar. But then there’s the hybrid cloud too. As its name suggests, the hybrid cloud is a combination of two different types of clouds, public and private. The hybrid cloud can give your business all of the benefits listed in the first paragraph (power, affordability, scalability and simplicity) without the tradeoffs that come with entrusting your data to an unknown (or unresponsive) quantity.
How might that work in practice? Here’s an example: A business provides some resources in-house. For instance, it might store current consumer data on its private in-house cloud. It might also store employee records, new marketing campaigns, and current proposals to new clients on its in-house storage.
That same business, though, might store older, archived data on a public cloud service. This frees up space on the business’ servers, and allows its in-house computers to operate more efficiently.
At the same time, taking a hybrid cloud approach to data storage allows businesses to take advantage of the space-saving benefits of the public cloud without also exposing their sensitive current data to third-party providers. In other words, the hybrid cloud provides businesses with security, cost-savings, and efficiency.
Why the hybrid cloud approach makes sense
It’s little wonder, then, that so many businesses today are moving toward a hybrid cloud approach. There is simply too much data floating around today for smaller businesses to adequately store. At the same time, businesses in today’s competitive environment don’t want to expose company secrets and sensitive consumer data to either their rivals or hackers.
The hybrid cloud allows businesses to have the best of both worlds.