Keep Your Head in the Cloud
Veriday / November 15th, 2022
6 min read
Keep Your Head in the Cloud, Your Feet on the Ground, and Your Data Where You Need It with Hybrid Management Tools
This article is an explainer and trend piece about database management in hybrid clouds. Organizations that want to synchronize data both on-premises and in the cloud need tools to manage data from a central control point with the ability to move data seamlessly between on-site and cloud-based platforms.
What hybrid solutions are available now?
Kubernetes is a great place to begin a hybrid cloud strategy. It provides a consistent management framework for cloud applications that can be situated on-premises or in the cloud. Kubernetes is an open-source project allowing businesses to have more choices and flexibility while gaining a platform that provides standards for deploying applications based on business needs. In the future, we will see businesses saying, “We need to run this application on-premisies today and in Guatemala six months from now..” Kubernetes, enables this to happen seamlessly and rapidly. Post-deployment, Kubernetes allows the business to adjust based on varying user demands which is a more efficient allocation of resources. The platform can automatically scale applications up and down, resulting in better utilization of the underlying infrastructure and assets.
What are the opportunities and risks?
Security
Hybrid cloud approaches inherently face security risks associated with managing a combination of private and public clouds. While private clouds provide security to protect sensitive information, the hybrid cloud model must manage data moved between private and public domains. Sensitive data needs to be isolated from the public cloud requiring clearly and carefully designed and managed processes that rely on private cloud access to complete their work.
Integrating Clouds is a Highly Skilled Job
For a hybrid cloud infrastructure to be effective, it must be managed by a qualified team that understands the complexities of integrating data and processes between public and private clouds. Applications and digital assets can be transferred with ease between clouds, but establishing metadata and configurations between the two clouds is much harder due to the security requirements discussed earlier. Identifying applications to manage the integration of both private and public clouds is vital and requires highly skilled cloud technicians.
It’s Difficult to Build an Efficient Strategy
There’s very little guidance on effectively managing cloud services with a variety of providers, which presents challenges as businesses attempt to create efficient cloud management strategies. Each cloud provider may have different infrastructure, methods, and associated software adding complexity making it difficult to fine tune application performance.
Focus on the Design of the Network
For a hybrid cloud approach model to be useful in the long term, it requires a high-quality system design that considers the bandwidth used by the network, how the network will be managed between the private and public clouds, and the application used to ensure all network necessities are met.
It is important for anyone using the hybrid cloud approach to understand the significant limitations of relying on public clouds and develop ways to keep information secure at all times while still taking advantage of the hybrid model. New software companies are providing businesses with solutions to more effectively design, build, and manage hybrid cloud designs, keeping sensitive data safe from intrusion while delivering exceptional and efficient business agility.
The following risks are important for businesses to manage in moving to hybrid cloud infrastructures:
Data Leakage:
Private and public clouds in a hybrid setup are usually connected through the open internet, exposing a risk of data leakage due to human errors, compromised endpoints (e.g., lost smartphones), man-in-the-middle attacks, etc. Data leakage could also occur if APIs for cloud management are not properly implemented and secured.
Compliance risks:
Achieving and maintaining consistent compliance is a huge challenge in hybrid clouds because data flows between the public and private cloud components. The difficulty of maintaining and complying with governance frameworks across disparate infrastructures is increased, especially when they are provisioned by multiple service providers whose compliance capabilities are different.
Gaps in security controls:
There could be misalignments or inconsistencies in security controls implemented across hybrid cloud setups. Often, public clouds are held to and have a higher level of security control maturity than private clouds. For example, some private cloud infrastructures may not be as conscientiously patched to the same levels as public clouds.
Misaligned service level agreements (SLAs):
Private clouds may have SLAs that are not as clear/stringent as those imposed when using public clouds. Different CSPs could also provide SLAs that might be different. It can then be challenging to align varying SLAs to deliver an overarching end-to-end service-oriented SLA for end users.
Comprehensive security risk assessment:
Risk assessment is a challenge when evaluating hybrid cloud setups. It may be conducted separately for the private and public clouds rather than evaluated comprehensively as a whole, a potential consequence of which is, difficulty maintaining a consistent compliance posture or obtaining an overall compliance picture of the hybrid cloud.
Poor / no encryption:
While the clouds in a hybrid architecture are usually subjected to regular data protection risks on an individual basis, the hybrid cloud as a whole faces higher risks due to the transit of data from one cloud environment to another. It is at the interconnection interfaces and pipes that data is most susceptible to theft or alteration if robust encryption is not employed.
Decentralized identify & credential management:
The lack of a centralized and unified identity management may cause account information inconsistency between clouds, resulting in discontinuous log audits and failures to trace resource misuse.
What’s a hybrid cloud database and what are its benefits?
Hybrid Cloud databases like OPENSHIFT, create a containerized solution for businesses to build and manage across any cloud with a common platform. That means you gain efficiency by applying skill once, building an approach with centralized management. Businesses also accelerate their digital transformation timelines with increased data insights,predictive analytics, security, automation, and modernization, across any cloud
What are some tips for implementing hybrid cloud databases in your IT environment?
TIME TO INTEGRATE:
Consider how to build and deploy even complex integration projects in a much shorter time than the other approaches.
WEB-BASED DESIGN AND MONITORING:
Like other cloud applications, solutions like Entando have a web-based interface providing anytime, anywhere manageability. You can design and maintain connections and integrations, monitor results, and resolve errors.
BROAD ARRAY OF APPLICATION AND TECHNOLOGY CONNECTORS:
An iPaaS will include resident connectors to primary SaaS applications in multiple categories, such as CRM, ERP, and marketing automation. It will also provide technology connectors for common databases, text files, and protocols such as OData and ODBC.
HYBRID INTEGRATION BETWEEN CLOUD AND ON-PREMISES SYSTEMS:
In addition to cloud-to-cloud integration, an iPaaS manages handles integration with on-premises systems, usually by installing agent software behind the corporate firewall.
DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING FOR SCALABILITY:
A multi-tenant environment, makes sense because it distributes integration workloads to agent resources that are dedicated to a single tenant so that one tenant’s integration jobs do not affect the other tenants’ jobs. The system scales by adding agent resources, whether in the cloud or on-premises.
Does it replace or complement other databases?
It can do either.
