If you are a cloud user, you may be concerned about the ways by which you can structure your hybrid cloud combining both on premises and public cloud infrastructures. There are many definitions for hybrid clouds and this article is going to present how hybrid clouds are defined for Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

According to many users, hybrid clouds are regarded as the final place for most entrepreneurs in which there are some infrastructures will be on premises while others are located on the public clouds. For other businesses, hybrid clouds mean something muddled by a lot of definitions generated from numerous providers. As a result, the definition for this seems to be rather vague and difficult to explain.

This article is going to present how hybrid cloud should be defined as well as by what ways people can apply it for their companies.

1. The definition of hybrid cloud computing

In spite of the fact that there is no certain definition of hybrid cloud computing, we also get the closest term from the National Institutes for Standards in Technology. More precisely, hybrid cloud infrastructure is a mixture of two or more cloud structures, which may be private, public or community. In this combination, the cloud infrastructures will be bound together by technologies allowing both data and app portability.

Currently, most people consider that hybrid cloud computing is either public or cloud management or just being capable of managing tools through the two environments.

2. Hybrid cloud structures

In case you get at least two cloud environments or more, it is highly recommended for you to have a management base to span the environments. Dealing with each environment independently can generate too many unused efforts as well as possible safety issues. These are some of accesses for you to structure a hybrid cloud.

First and foremost, you can take advantage of hybrid cloud control software. There have been so many startups as well as even established providers that use developed software in order to control both on premises and public infrastructure and apps. Virtual machines, storage as well as other resources could be changed in a single console no matter where they are located, inside a personal data center or a public cloud.

According to an analyst from Forrester, hybrid control is a must in this stage of cloud computing development. However, its development is not as fast as some people may expect. A lot of IT engineers have recognized that it is a good idea to control both public cloud and on premises environments through making use of Application Programming Interfaces as well as tools which are suitable for those platforms. After all, many software systems will be applied with concentration on certain tasks like managing cost, monitoring performance for apps and so on.

The second option is to utilize vendor – native hybrid cloud. To be more specific, people can architect a hybrid cloud through expanding the on premises footprint to the public cloud or vice versa. Otherwise they can connect their public cloud resources with a data center. Few years ago, Infrastructure as a Service cloud providers developed so fast with these offerings.

If you are looking for companies that can help you extend your on premises resources to the public clouds, you can consult VMware, Red Hat or Dell and Cisco while some public Infrastructure as a Service vendors set up their connections from their public clouds into the data centers of their clients.

Last but not least, Platform as a Service is also a good option. Currently, a lot of companies are making use of Platform as a Service. More precisely, this an app development base for engineers to write their own apps that they want to operate. Most Platform as a Service software can operate on clients’ premises privately., which also adds a value to this option.

3. Approaches to hybrid cloud by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google

In spite of a reluctance made recently, some Infrastructure as a Service providers have lately taken advantage of public cloud infrastructure to integrate into clients’ on premises resources. Providers are also making tools to work through these environments.

In terms of Amazon Web Services, which is attractive to many public Infrastructure as a Service cloud vendors, they introduced to public as a hybrid cloud company. They claimed that they do not only concentrate on public clouds. Recently, Amazon Web Services have released such tools as Amazon Storage Gateway, Amazon Web Services Direct Connect and many app development tools such as Code Deploy. Amazon Web Services have made a big leap three years ago after its collaboration with VMware to support hybrid cloud. After this partnership, customers are now able to operate VMware software on dedicated structure.

Secondly, we can not ignore Microsoft Azure, which is among the largest Infrastructure as a Service cloud vendors. Introducing as a hybrid cloud company, Microsoft has been the most prominent company in marketing. The major hybrid cloud platform of this vendor is called Azure Stack, which is a hardware contributed by such big names as Dell, Cisco and Lenovo. Although this platform is designed with the main aim to operate similarly to the public cloud of Azure, it locates on the premises of clients. What is more, Microsoft also lets its software control options be extended on premise such as its Active directory safety and platform used to manage approaches.

Finally, let’s take a look at Google Cloud Platform. Similarly to Amazon Web Services, Google also concentrated on its recently marketing campaigns made for public clouds. The most prominent change for this leap is the collaboration with Nutanix in order to let their clients operate apps in Nutanix both on premises and on public clouds.

Also, Google has built a good relationship with VMware. Google has already had software operating through public clouds called Kubernetes.  This open source app made by Google is able to operate either on premises or in the public cloud of Google.