How Hybrid Strategies Contain the Rising Costs of Public Clouds

By Florian Malecki, Executive Vice President of Marketing, Arcserve

Energy costs are rising fast, forcing public cloud providers to significantly raise their prices. A recent report by Canalys predicts that public cloud costs will grow by about 20 percent in the U.S. and more than 30 percent in Europe in 2023. These massive price increases are making IT pros think twice as they assess whether the conventional wisdom that the cloud is a cost-effective alternative to on-premises computing is right.

These costs will directly impact your company’s decisions as you assess whether moving your infrastructure to the cloud makes sense. There are plenty of alternatives to public clouds. Solutions that you use regularly—and expect to continue to do so into the future—may make more economic sense to operate internally rather than hosted in the cloud. In these cases, operating and managing your infrastructure could be more cost-effective in the medium to long term.

Complex Technologies May Be More Cloud-Compatible

Indeed, some technologies and solutions are too complex and compute-intensive—like artificial intelligence (AI)—to be hosted anywhere but in public clouds. The economics of operating on-premises infrastructure doesn’t pencil out in these cases.

Public clouds are also excellent options for services and solutions that demand greater flexibility because usage can be quickly ramped up and down as needed to support specific initiatives or timeframes. Some examples include financial solutions that may strain on-premises infrastructure when heavily used, such as at year-end and retail shopping systems that see massive traffic jumps on days like Black Friday.

All of this must be considered as you decide whether or not to use public clouds for data storage and infrastructure. Another option worth considering is a hybrid infrastructure, where some data, applications, and infrastructure are hosted on-premises while others remain in the public cloud. But finding the right balance between the two can be challenging.

The Pros and Cons of a Hybrid Cloud Strategy

A hybrid cloud strategy brings plenty of benefits. You can control your costs more easily and manage your data no matter where it resides—on-premises or in a public or private cloud. And with today’s fast-evolving markets, the flexibility of a hybrid cloud strategy lets you optimize your infrastructure for your specific needs.

A hybrid data center can easily be adapted to meet your changing requirements while offering real-time protection from ransomware. And a hybrid approach enables you to cost-effectively implement robust cybersecurity with efficient performance, reliability, scalability, and agility.

But a hybrid data center also demands IT time and effort. And operating it can be a challenge. But hybrid strategies let you store workloads more efficiently and relocate them as needed to meet data protection requirements, such as for highly-sensitive data. But managing more servers, networks, storage, and software can be complex.

For example, suppose your company is employing a hybrid approach. In that case, you need to secure your data and applications both on-premises and in the cloud—regardless of where the data and applications were originally hosted. And you need to be able to back up and restore your data and applications wherever they are used or stored.

Getting there demands data management and storage solutions built for a hybrid world.

Data Repatriation Is on the Horizon

As cloud costs continue to rise, you may need to scale back your workloads to conserve your IT budget. This isn’t a forecast—it is today’s reality. Rising energy prices are forcing companies to rethink their cloud strategy.

Research supports the hybrid trend, with a survey by IDC finding that 71 percent of respondents plan to move some or all of their current workloads on public clouds back on-premises over the next two years. Only 13 percent said they plan to run all their workloads in the cloud.

Benefits Beyond Cost

Cost isn’t the only reason companies are moving their workloads back on-premises. Some others are security, performance, compliance, and a desire for more control over their IT infrastructures. But if your workloads increase dramatically—which is always a possibility as technologies evolve—your on-premises infrastructure may no longer be a cost-effective choice. Be sure and consider this potential as you make your infrastructure decisions.

The amount of generated data has grown to the point where it often doesn’t make sense to manage it exclusively in an on-premises data center. A hybrid strategy solves this problem by offering the flexibility you need to move workloads around to keep costs under control, meet performance requirements, and ensure a higher level of security.

A hybrid strategy demands that you choose a data storage solution that protects your data no matter where it resides—onsite, offsite, or in the cloud. And your selected solution should ensure your data is always available, even when disaster strikes.

Tools for a Tiered Storage Strategy

Your storage solution should also include analytics tools that help you quickly decide which data is critical to your operations and which isn’t. These analytics help you choose the most cost-effective place for your data—onsite or in the cloud—a tiered storage strategy that ensures fast access to vital data while cutting costs by moving less critical data to less expensive storage media.

With cloud costs growing, now is an excellent time to reassess your data storage strategy. Look for solutions that guarantee cost-effective workload and data management while ensuring accessibility and security.

For expert help determining the proper data storage and data protection strategy for your organization, choose an Arcserve technology partner. To learn more about Arcserve products, check out our on-demand demos.