A hybrid cloud is a combination of private and public clouds. Using a hybrid cloud eliminates organizations’ reliance on any one system, internal or public, or on any one cloud service provider for greater flexibility. Hybrid clouds can also cut back on costs because they are essentially shared between organizations, while allowing companies to maintain business processes and implement additional or new services effectively.

Thinking about bringing the hybrid cloud to your organization? Here are four things to consider:

1) Risks

Planning for a new systems and infrastructure environment requires risk assessments of the existing environment and the cloud solution, cost analysis, return on investment and project implementation.

2) IT Environment

Be sure to check the physical connectivity, network communications requirements, operating systems benefits/limitations and application requirements. If these aren’t compatible, problems are sure to arise.

3) Spikes in Usage

To define systems requirements for existing applications being moved to the cloud, use a reporting tool to track utilizations like bandwidth, processor, memory and systems resources over the course of time and relate it to business processes, such as month/year-end or tax season.

4) Business Needs

Know what you require from your IT system. Define, document and validate all business processes before moving into cloud implementation.

Even after implementation, be ready and willing to revise your plan as organizations are constantly changing to new processes and needs. Now the question falls to you, to cloud or not to cloud?

–Jerry Irvine