Leaseweb is excited to announce the release of our Cloud Connect product in the UK!
Hybrid cloud computing is increasingly popular in the UK IT industry because it can offer companies more scalability and security with reduced costs. For many businesses, this is the ideal solution. That is why we are excited to release our hybrid cloud solution – Leaseweb Cloud Connect – in the UK market as of now!
In this blog, we explain everything you need to know about hybrid cloud solutions and the benefits of Leaseweb Cloud Connect.
What is the Cloud?
What is Hybrid Cloud?
How does Hybrid Cloud Work?
Benefits of Hybrid Cloud Solutions
The Importance of a Private Connection to the Public Cloud
The Cloud Connect Model
Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Use Cases
Benefits of Leaseweb Cloud Connect
What is the Cloud?
The cloud has transformed the IT landscape. It is one of the most transformative technologies to have appeared in the last decade. Companies with on-premises IT infrastructures can move their workloads to the public cloud, making it cheaper to operate and easier to manage applications. Virtualization and multiple service platforms have made it possible for activities in the cloud to be accessed from anywhere at any time.
However, there is a downside to it. Concerns about security, control and growing costs drive a lot of companies to rethink moving fully to the public cloud. Instead, there has been an increasing move towards hybrid cloud computing, particularly in the last two years.
What is Hybrid Cloud?
A hybrid cloud solution is the combination of a dedicated server environment, a private cloud and a public cloud. It allows companies to move workloads between these environments as computing needs and costs change.
How does Hybrid Cloud Work?
An essential part of hybrid cloud computing is the connection to the public cloud from the data center where the private cloud and the dedicated server environment reside. Connectivity between the two environments can be established through the Internet or through a private connection that bypasses the Internet and goes directly to public cloud.
Benefits of Hybrid Cloud Solutions
Hybrid cloud solutions give businesses flexibility and more deployment options. Data can be accessed from anywhere and it is thus ideal for supporting remote employees. In addition, the security is stronger thanks to the private connection to the public cloud. But perhaps the biggest advantage is that costs are reduced, making it the optimum solution for businesses wanting to scale their operations without skyrocketing expenses.
The Importance of a Private Connection to the Public Cloud
A connection through the Internet is fraught with security and performance issues. DDoS attacks lead to congestion which leads to packet loss, jitter and latency. Traffic through the Internet passes through other networks between any two destinations. All these networks use routers and links which can be compromised. The Internet path is therefore a security risk.
At the same time, companies require a stable, secure, and high-performance connection. For example, ad-network bidding systems where network quality can increase revenue or drag revenue down are extremely dependent on good performance. An Internet hiccup would have a big impact on such a system.
A private connection to the public cloud (like Leaseweb Cloud Connect) on the other hand, is secure because traffic flows from the data center to public cloud directly. Performance is predictable, there are no other networks in between, and it’s cost effective as the fees involved are much lower than the Internet public traffic fees.
The Cloud Connect Model
The cloud connect model consists of three parts, the public cloud (e.g. AWS GCP, Azure etc.), the IT infrastructure in a data center, and the network connection in between.
A company orders the network connection (Leaseweb Cloud Connect) from a connectivity provider (every public cloud has its own name e.g. In AWS it is APN Partner Network, in GCP it is Cloud Interconnect Provider, in MS Azure is ExpressRoute Connectivity Provider). The connectivity provider transports VLANs and traffic to the desired public cloud region over Layer Two. However, to establish connectivity with a public cloud provider, a connection over Layer 3 is required.
After the BGP session is up, the services in a public cloud can exchange data with the IT infrastructure in a data center (on premises or hosted) in a fast and secure manner.
Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Use Cases
There are several scenarios where a hybrid cloud platform may be the best solution for your business.
Cloud Bursting
Cloud bursting is when workloads “spill over” from the private cloud into the public cloud environment because they have exceeded the capacity of the private cloud. For example, when a major sporting event takes place, and the broadcaster needs to suddenly handle significantly more traffic, cloud bursting is a solution. In order to ensure low latency and security, the private and public clouds must be physically housed close to one another.
DevOps Application Development
As DevOps has gained popularity, IT teams have found that using hybrid cloud infrastructure helps to speed up development times whilst keeping their live applications secure. DevOps teams can use the public cloud to set up applications as it is simple and fast to use. Once an application is ready to be deployed, it can be moved back to the private cloud to improve security and cost-effectiveness.
Archiving
Hybrid cloud solutions are not necessarily the cheapest solution in every case, but it is one of the most cost-effective ways to put data to rest. That is, if data does not need to be moved in and out of the cloud frequently, then storing it in a hybrid cloud is very cheap.
Disaster Recovery
Using a hybrid cloud infrastructure is a significantly more affordable way of protecting your data in the case of a system failure or disaster, in comparison to creating independent disaster recovery environments. With the hybrid cloud, data is transferred to the public cloud when on-premises data fails. This means that the data is protected in a location far away from the primary site and is unlikely to be a victim of the same disaster.
Benefits of Leaseweb Cloud Connect
Leaseweb Cloud Connect offers predictable, secure, fast and reliable connectivity. This is a high-speed hybrid cloud connection that allows you to bypass the Internet and securely connect your Leaseweb infrastructure to the public cloud.
Our hybrid cloud platform brings you the flexibility to move workloads between a public cloud and Leaseweb as demands, needs, and costs change. While the public cloud hosts your development, one-off workloads, or big data, Leaseweb hosts your business-critical applications and data.
The unique features of Leaseweb Cloud Connect are:
Maximum Efficiency
Save costs by running workloads in their most suitable cloud environments. Create hybrid cloud environments by running workloads via dedicated servers to the Leaseweb and public cloud.
Secure Connection
Bypass the Internet and securely connect your Leaseweb infrastructure to a public provider. This direct connection means no DDoS attacks interfering with performance and no other networks in between traffic.
Transparent Pricing
Get high value for money and no surprises on the bill. Pricing is offered on an unmetered bandwidth basis with fixed monthly fees.
For more information on Leaseweb Cloud Connect, click here.