Experts believe that internal clouds, also known as virtual infrastructures, can benefit from the public clouds in more than one way.
IT professionals like to think of the internal cloud as a virtualization infrastructure, and do not agree when vendors refer it as a ‘cloud’.
However, “internal clouds” or virtual infrastructures can benefit from public cloud to increase their current operations. Public clouds can act as backup databases, especially for smaller businesses ? they can send their data and be able to recover it in future ? in the event of data loss. Applications can also be moved to the public clouds when the load on the internal data center is beyond capacity. Here are some of the ways by which public cloud can be useful to virtualization infrastructure:
1- Offsite Backup
Public clouds give an effective backup setup for small businesses to store their data. Initially, public clouds were only used to back up desktop and laptop data, but now, physical and virtual servers can also be protected. Cloud storage offers a perfect separate location from the data center, and since most cloud providers have databases at different geographical locations, data is better protected from disasters.
A possible challenge here is that cloud storage is not integrated with the virtual backup software. The backup software has to be added afterwards by using a gateway appliance. This factor reduces efficiency, and increases complexities, while using public cloud as a backup center.
2- Public Cloud for Disaster Recovery
Data protection and cloud service providers are cashing-in on the fact that with the exact image of user’s virtual infrastructure in their database, they can provide efficient disaster recovery in their facility. This is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses because now, they no longer have a fully staffed site to be used for disaster recovery. For this reason, cloud vendors are no longer just data backup providers; rather, they are full-time recovery service providers.
3- Public Cloud Provides Bursting Option
It would be unfair to say that public cloud is just used for creating backups or data recovery systems. Public clouds serve as a great way through which users increase their performance standards by moving their applications on their server, at times of peak load. This ensures the system is performing at an optimum level. This concept is known as “cloud bursting” and allows businesses to offload their extra activity on their server to the public cloud, temporarily. Users can offload less active applications on the public cloud. The biggest challenge here is integrating the moving of the application to the cloud ? it is often complex and expensive. However, connecting experts and companies like HotLink are trying to integrate multilayer management and devising ways to cut costs.
Public Cloud can be useful in many ways for data centers of all sizes, especially for mid and small-sized businesses. The need is to start looking at the cloud as more than just backup data storage, as disaster recovery is within reach.
