What is Next-Generation Hybrid Cloud in Colocation Data Centers?

1. What is Next-Generation Hybrid Cloud in Colocation Data Centers? Server Wala TeamMarch 1, 2021 0 46 5 minutes read You must be aware that the cloud era begins to rise in the mid-2000s. At that time period, the colocation data centers seem themselves as another option against the public cloud. The disjunction of the “Cloud vs. Colo” remained in the industry for around two decades. It gave rise to the competition between public cloud providers and colocation data centers. Things only had started changing from the past several years, when the competition was set aside, and further development took the advance. The largest public cloud providers brought about the solution of a new generation of hybrid clouds. It has made it way simpler for the people to deploy. The people have the privilege to access public cloud services while preserving their system or loads at the colocation data center. Let us perceive the distinction of “Cloud vs. Colo” and what is entailed in the next-generation hybrid cloud at a colocation data center.

2. Cloud Vs. Colocation Here is what makes you realize why the cloud and colocation were traditionally distinguished in the IT industry. A colocation is a form of service in which the colocation provider hosts the customers’ equipment by rendering the space, power, rack, and bandwidth. Whereas the cloud seems to be a software of hardware available for the customers’ use through the Internet. •The enterprises prefer Colocation because it gives space to house their servers. Thus, enabling them to have the advantage and flexibility of controlling the server entirely. That is how the big firms can save their money in the long run. •However, most of the operations and startups will go for the cloud services to get the scalable cost and low overhead. They will not require any information technology staff in the cloud for assistance. •If you wonder about the critical difference between them, you should know that running the workloads in your public cloud offers a broad range of different services. However, you will lose the privacy and control that the colocation data center can provide you with the infrastructure. The customers have the authority to select the hardware and decide how it must be configured in the colocation. They also choose how the hardware can be kept isolated from other organization’s resources.

3. During the 2010s, many companies hopped to the public cloud as it appeared a more appealing option to them in terms of flexibility and a broad range of resources. But after some time, some moved back to Colocation. Hence, one can not argue to claim which proved better in the last decade. Both of them enjoyed their discrete momentum. You can understand that both the technologies do not oppose but go hand in hand according to the enterprises’ requirements. In the last few years, most companies have got a mix of infrastructure solutions that incorporate both cloud and colocation deployments. This combination of cloud and colo technologies is what we call the hybrid cloud. It has given the companies to resolve the confusions between cloud and colo by opting for this solution of another dimension. Move on to the next section to go more in-depth about the hybrid cloud solution. Hybrid Cloud: Cloud Paired With Colocation Here we have to dig a little deeper to understand the different clouds before knowing the hybrid cloud facts. Public Cloud: It features a significant number of servers to let businesses use them. The cloud service providers offer Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). The client will only have to pay for how much utilizes CPU, RAM, and disk space.

4. Private Cloud: It is the infrastructure that operates only your data. It can be either on-site or a third party. You can get it designed according to your requirements. It ultimately gets dedicated to your enterprise. The Colocation facility falls into this cloud category, where the enterprise will get their servers and equipment on their own and pay for the space in the data center to keep and manage them. Hybrid Cloud: It is the environment that involves both public cloud and private cloud. It connects on-premises or colocation servers that fall in the private cloud category with the public clouds. It enables data and applications to migrate in between the clouds. As a consequence, the hybrid cloud increases agility, security, and cost-effectiveness. The new generation hybrid cloud frameworks introduced by public cloud companies have allowed them to increase their market share. That is because, for the customers, it is way feasible to take benefits of the public cloud services while preserving workloads and equipment inside a colocation data center. The hybrid solutions have made it possible to overcome the gap built because of the conventional separation of public cloud from the colocation data centers. Suppose your colo data center provider foregathers the applicable hardware necessities, and you are also pleased to maintain your software side of matters on your own or have hired a third-party service provider for that. In that case, the hybrid frameworks assist in the easy and smooth deployment of public cloud services like AWS S3 storage or Azure Virtual Machines on servers placed in a colo data center. According to the requirement, getting the hybrid cloud framework will also let you access the broad range of public cloud services, as mentioned before. Along with assisting the IaaS to compute and storage services, the hybrid cloud solutions also support serverless functions and databases. Moreover, software delivery platforms built into public clouds such as PaaS-like also acquire hybrid cloud support. It has become very cost-effective as the cost to access the services will be the same or less than the price of public cloud services. Thus, for customers of a hybrid cloud framework within a colocation center, the total payable amount, including colocation, will be lesser even if we compare it with the single public cloud or just a colocation service solution. Indeed, it is a big deal for the customers as the earlier generations of hybrid cloud solutions like Windows Azure Pack (debuted in 2013), the predecessor to Azure Stack, etc., did not provide the broad compatibility functionality, unlike the new generation of hybrid cloud. Only a handful of public cloud services got support from the early generations of the hybrid cloud.

5. Conclusion After learning about the hybrid cloud in the colocation data center, what is now transparent is there no sense of comparing cloud and colocation to keeping them at the opposite lanes. The new generation of hybrid cloud frameworks has made it possible to achieve a level of integration between the public cloud and colo with full flexibility, affordability, and security. The real comparison or opposition can be seen in between on-premises and hybrid cloud. You will notice that migration is more happening towards the hybrid solutions, precisely because of the agility. What you need to do at this step is to identify the accurate allocation of resources across the cloud, colocation facilities, and their own on-premises data center according to your business requirements and that suits you the best.