What is Hybrid Cloud and Public Cloud in Salesforce?

Hi Anurag,

Public clouds are the most common way of deploying cloud computing. The cloud resources (like servers and storage) are owned and operated by a third-party cloud service provider and delivered over the Internet. Microsoft Azure is an example of a public cloud. With a public cloud, all hardware, software and other supporting infrastructure is owned and managed by the cloud provider. In a public cloud, you share the same hardware, storage and network devices with other organisations or cloud “tenants.” You access services and manage your account using a web browser. Public cloud deployments are frequently used to provide web-based email, online office applications, storage and testing and development environments.

Hybrid clouds combine on-premises infrastructure, or private clouds, with public clouds so organisations can reap the advantages of both. In a hybrid cloud, data and applications can move between private and public clouds for greater flexibility and more deployment options. For instance, you can use the public cloud for high-volume, lower-security needs such as web-based email and the private cloud (or other on-premises infrastructure) for sensitive, business-critical operations like financial reporting. In a hybrid cloud, “cloud bursting” is also an option. This is when an application or resource runs in the private cloud until there is a spike in demand (such as seasonal event like online shopping or tax filing), at which point the organisation can “burst through” to the public cloud to tap into additional computing resources.

What is a hybrid cloud?
Often called “the best of both worlds,” hybrid clouds combine on-premises infrastructure, or private clouds, with public clouds so organisations can reap the advantages of both. In a hybrid cloud, data and applications can move between private and public clouds for greater flexibility and more deployment options. For instance, you can use the public cloud for high-volume, lower-security needs such as web-based email and the private cloud (or other on-premises infrastructure) for sensitive, business-critical operations like financial reporting. In a hybrid cloud, “cloud bursting” is also an option. This is when an application or resource runs in the private cloud until there is a spike in demand (such as seasonal event like online shopping or tax filing), at which point the organisation can “burst through” to the public cloud to tap into additional computing resources.

Advantages of hybrid clouds:
Control—your organisation can maintain a private infrastructure for sensitive assets.
Flexibility—you can take advantage of additional resources in the public cloud when you need them.
Cost-effectiveness—with the ability to scale to the public cloud, you pay for extra computing power only when needed.
Ease—transitioning to the cloud does not have to be overwhelming because you can migrate gradually—phasing in workloads over time.

Hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment that uses a mix of on-premises, private cloud and third-party, public cloud services with orchestration between the two platforms.

Public clouds such as Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azure have a number of benefits:

Utility Model – Public clouds typically deliver a pay-as-you-go model, where you pay by the hour for the compute resources you use. This is an economical way to go if you’re spinning up and tearing down development servers on a regular basis.
No Contracts – Along with the utility model, you’re only paying by the hour – if you want to shut down your server after only 2 hours of use, there is no contract requiring your ongoing use of the server.
Shared Hardware – Because the public cloud is by definition a multi-tenant environment, your server shares the same hardware, storage and network devices as the other tenants in the cloud.
Self Managed – With the pay-as-you-go utility model, self managed systems are required for this business model to make sense. There is an advantage here for the technical buyers that like to setup and manage the details of their servers, but a disadvantage for those that want a fully managed solution.
Most public cloud deployments are generally used for web servers or development systems where security and compliance requirements of larger organizations and their customers is less of an issue.