Hybrid Cloud Integration: Choosing the Right Approach

Businesses can benefit from hybrid cloud integration in a variety of ways. Most notably, hybrid cloud integration provides the flexibility of combining cloud and on-premises technologies.

The hybrid integration model allows you to effectively leverage cloud and on-premises technologies for data exchange and technology consumption. With an integrated hybrid cloud solution, you can unify data across cloud and on-premises applications and data, eliminating silos and ensuring your data works strategically.

3 Focus Areas for Hybrid Cloud Integration

When integrating hybrid cloud environments, you should focus on three main areas: 

• IT Architecture
• Scalability
• Security and regulatory compliance

IT Architecture

If you work for a large company, you probably have data and apps both on-premises and in the cloud. So, where should you place your integration solution? First, you need to figure out where your IT center of gravity is.

The answer is clearest if your business operates entirely in the cloud or on-premises. Yet, many companies exist in a gray area. In such cases, it can be unclear where they should deploy their integration solutions.

Though it is crucial to analyze your current infrastructure, you must also look ahead. Your integration solution should allow your company to scale over time to future-proof against new trends as your requirements change.

Scalability

Integration must be scalable out of the box. Furthermore, it should be globally available and allow you to create and manage application programming interfaces (APIs). You must also be able to generate revenue from existing apps.

Choosing a hybrid cloud integration solution follows a logical progression. In most cases, this progression involves simple connections, data sync, and point-to-point communication. Yet, these are all reactive solutions. Your IT team is trying to solve current problems rather than prevent future issues from arising. It can help to look instead at the bigger picture by allowing customers and staff to interact with your data or tasking third-party developers with consuming and repurposing it.

When considering any integration, you should evaluate the project's scope first. While point-to-point connections may solve an immediate problem, they may also introduce more issues down the road. An integration platform can better help you reap future benefits.

A point-to-point integration or on-premises solution cannot always handle new apps, new data sources, and new calls for in-house data. It also cannot scale to meet evolving requirements.

Security and Regulatory Compliance

The core of IT is security and regulatory compliance. IT security teams must keep data secure and comply with national and international regulations. It only takes one major breach to significantly impact your business. 

A hybrid environment might seem prone to security holes, yet many companies already keep data safely in the cloud. Sales teams often use Salesforce. HR departments can rely on SuccessFactors. Cloud security for these enterprise-level tools usually depends on company policy. 

Data migration to the cloud has changed the integration debate from prohibition to precaution. Any integration solution you use should encrypt data in transit and at rest.