Cloud computing has established itself in the market across a broad front. Many companies, however, use both private and public cloud services. Combining both models into a true hybrid cloud is better and more effective.
CIOs have come to appreciate the flexibility of public clouds. Surveys show that almost half of IT departments worldwide make use of the offers of external IT service providers: companies utilise external storage space or subscribe to server or individual applications. When asked why they do so, most of them first cite the high flexibility. Cloud services can usually be secured and set up within a few hours and, once the need is past, can be cancelled relatively quickly. The second reason managers mention is the easily and reliably calculated costs. Unlike on-premise installations, subscription models also tend to be free of any unpleasant surprises due to failures, malfunctions, viruses, etc.
Parallel worlds without an interface
Companies nevertheless also keep a lot of data and applications in their own data centres, especially for compliance reasons. These in turn are increasingly organised according to the criteria for private clouds. IT staff are thus faced with the challenge of combining both clouds in a shared environment, as this is the only way to take full advantage of the benefits of cloud computing. If both on-premise and public cloud applications are used independently, strictly speaking this is not a hybrid cloud.
The challenges of integration should not be underestimated. Many – especially legacy – applications are not suitable for operation in a virtualized cloud environment. They lack the interfaces (APIs) that could ensure seamless interaction between the local applications and those in the cloud. To keep administration simple it would be desirable to have a unified management platform across the entire IT environment.
A solution for both worlds
Oracle therefore consistently follows the approach that on-premise applications should work in the same way as those in the cloud. Rather than providing specially customised versions, Oracle lets customers decide how and where to set up their software. In recent months the company has also developed an abundance of cloud services that users can obtain from the public cloud. In addition to Oracle Integration Public Cloud Service, these include services for connecting private and public cloud applications. Customers are thus provided with all the tools needed to set up a hybrid cloud that works efficiently, remains secure, and observes compliance rules.