Cloud infrastructure or on-site? That is the question.

Both options have unique benefits and drawbacks, and most companies these days use a mix of both. That’s because you can get the benefits of both computing models with a hybrid cloud infrastructure that includes a mix of on-premise infrastructure, private cloud, and public cloud services.

But if you want optimal results from your hybrid cloud infrastructure, you need to have an effective monitoring strategy. This ensures your applications take full advantage of the benefits of both on-premise and cloud computing solutions, while avoiding the pitfalls that come with the added complexity.

In this article, we’ll do a deep dive into how you can monitor your hybrid cloud infrastructure to ensure you get the best of both worlds (with none of the nasty drawbacks).

Let’s get started.

The truth is, detecting issues in your hybrid cloud infrastructure is more challenging than detecting issues in a single cloud computing setup. 

Infrastructure Issues Detection 

You need more robust systems to detect issues faster in order to minimize their impact on data and applications running on this infrastructure. Some of the most common issues with hybrid cloud are data security, account management, billing, and performance. 

Data security 

While running a hybrid cloud infrastructure, you need to detect any and all security loopholes as soon as possible before your applications and data are compromised. The core aspects of security that need your attention include account management, access control, and encryption. And these should all be implemented and monitored both on the cloud and on-premise computing infrastructure. 

One of the major security issues with the hybrid cloud model is the risk of transferring data between your on-premise or private cloud to the public cloud. The best way to deal with this issue is to use robust encryption to safeguard all your data during storage and transmission.

Account Management and Billing 

One of the major issues that organizations face while implementing hybrid cloud solutions is incurring costs beyond what they should have incurred. This is usually due to the absence of systems that can effectively monitor bills on all the cloud services the organization is using. Monitoring your cloud bills manually is not an option, especially if you are using several cloud services. 

The best way to detect any issues related to overbilling is by using third-party applications built to offer visibility into all your cloud expenses and real-time alerts whenever they get out of range.

With these tools, you can set limits to how much you want to spend on certain cloud services within a given period. Whenever you are about to get to these limits, some of the resources will be terminated to avoid the extra expenses. 

Performance 

One issue you will often have to monitor with hybrid systems is performance—you need to ensure all the deployed applications are optimized. As we earlier shared under account management and billing, monitoring performance manually is complicated and not a reliable solution. 

The best way to monitor the performance of on-premise and cloud infrastructure is by using dedicated software tools, such as Broadcom’s DX Infrastructure Manager (DX IM).

DX Infrastructure Manager uses smart features that are able to detect performance drops and anomalies in any of the systems on your hybrid infrastructure. This improves faster response and reduces downtime of your systems. 

Data Governance in Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure

Before investing in hybrid cloud infrastructure, one of the issues you need to be cautious about is data governance. You need to ensure that your user data on both the private and public cloud is safeguarded from anything that would violate their privacy. 

GDPR and data governance

If you are operating within the EU, you need to ensure your apps running on the hybrid cloud infrastructure comply with the GDPR legal framework. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a legal framework that sets guidelines for collecting and processing data both on the private and public cloud for users within the EU. 

The GDPR requires all organizations to protect data for both their customers and employees at every stage of processing and storing the data. So, as a company, you need to build all the necessary systems that would enable you to comply with this regulation.

One of the technical Safeguards that the GDPR recommends is data encryption. All user data has to be encrypted to ensure no third-party entities access it as it is transmitted between the different hybrid cloud hardware. 

Data Governance in Multitenant Cloud

Multitenant cloud refers to a cloud computing architecture that allows users to share hardware resources on private or public clouds. The security risk involved in this cloud model is very high, hence creating the need for companies that use this kind of model to implement robust cybersecurity strategies to safeguard their users’ data. 

One of the ways you can ensure data security on a multitenant cloud platform is by adding a firewall for each tenant. In this case, when one of the tenants on the cloud is compromised by cyber attackers or malware, the rest are still protected from these intrusion attempts.

Installing perimeter and per-tenant firewalls is the safest method for safeguarding all your tenants. A perimeter firewall alone is not enough. 

User Experience (UX) and Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure 

One of the major reasons organizations are shifting to hybrid cloud solutions is to enhance the user experience of both workers and customers. A well-implemented hybrid cloud infrastructure should boost worker productivity and lead to better services/products for the final customers. 

While monitoring your hybrid cloud infrastructure, one of the issues you need to pay close attention to is whether the solutions you are implementing enhance the user experience of your workers and final customers. The CIO and CTO of the organization have to work hand in hand in order to implement solutions that boost the UX of workers and customers. 

So, here is how to achieve the best UX with hybrid cloud 

Align Your Physical and Cloud Infrastructure 

To get the best results from your hybrid cloud solution, you need to ensure your physical and cloud infrastructure are in sync. First, choose the right back-end physical infrastructure to enable your digital tools. The key deliverables for your physical infrastructure include the following; 

• Agility: You want something that is flexible to scale up and down with user demand: When the number of users goes up, your physical infrastructure should have the ability to scale up the hardware resources to ensure a great user experience for all users. In the same way, when the numbers reduce, it should also be able to scale down in order to minimize operational costs.
  
• Performance: You need infrastructure that offers the performance that is required to power real-time operations across web applications and cloud services.
  
• Communication: It must be able to effectively communicate with other servers: If your organization has servers in more than one location, there should be seamless communication between them in order to optimize performance. For instance, if one of your workers travels to another state or country and they want to access the IT service desk cloud service, your infrastructure should have the ability to detect the new location and connect the user to the closest possible server in order to optimize performance. 

Have Close Contact with Your Cloud Service Providers 

Like any other technology, cloud services are not perfect, and at some point, you will have issues that you need your service provider to help you fix. Having close contact with the service provider is crucial if you want your issues to be attended to with urgency.

This goes back to who you choose as your cloud service provider. That’s why you need one with an outstanding customer support reputation.

The good news is most of the popular cloud providers have reliable support teams that can always help you in case you get issues with any of their services. 

Final Thoughts on Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure

Monitoring your hybrid cloud infrastructure is imperative to ensure you get the full benefits that the hybrid cloud computing model offers. Detecting infrastructure issues in time, ensuring compliance with data regulatory authorities, and ensuring excellent user experience are the three core issues you need to focus on while monitoring your hybrid cloud infrastructure.

DX Infrastructure Manager can help you and your organization navigate the world of hybrid cloud monitoring.

If you’re ready to upgrade your infrastructure, contact us to take your infrastructure to the next level.