Aviatrix Blog 
Hybrid cloud has become the best of both worlds, the “you can have it all” option in cloud networking, since it offers the benefits of both private and public clouds. In a hybrid environment, you can store sensitive workloads in private locations where you have full control while saving costs and maximizing flexibility by storing other workloads in the public cloud. Hybrid cloud empowers cloud architects and engineers to customize their network to their organization’s needs.
Like any solution, however, hybrid cloud has its disadvantages. These environments can be messy to configure and manage, especially if an organization uses multiple cloud service platforms and third-party solutions.
Here are a few of the advantages and challenges of hybrid cloud as well as an offering that helps you maximize the benefits: a new Aviatrix Certified Engineer (ACE) course, the ACE Hybrid Cloud Specialty.
The Advantages of Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid cloud environments offer several key advantages over solely private or public environments:
- Flexibility – A hybrid environment connects public cloud services with private cloud or on-premises environments, allowing organizations to have flexibility in managing applications and data. This integration allows organizations to leverage the best aspects of both worlds – the scalability and cost-effectiveness of public cloud alongside the control and security of private infrastructure.
- Regulatory compliance support – To comply with regulations like HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2, and others that enforce specific requirements for data storage, encryption, user access, and monitoring, organizations often lean into the flexibility and customizable options of hybrid cloud.
- Cost optimization – While the public cloud offers excellent scalability, it can be expensive to continuously run certain workloads there. Hybrid architectures allow organizations to maintain predictable baseline workloads on-premises while leveraging public cloud for burst capacity during peak periods.
- Edge computing access – As organizations process more data at the edge to reduce latency and bandwidth usage, hybrid architectures provide the necessary framework to manage distributed computing resources effectively while centralizing management.
Challenges of Hybrid Cloud
While the advantages of hybrid cloud are substantial, no solution is perfect. Hybrid approaches also create significant challenges:
- Lagging network security – Traditional datacenter-to-cloud connections can be difficult to secure when neither you nor a single cloud service provider (CSP) owns both ends of the connection. Encryption inconsistencies and a lack of egress security can leave key security gaps that threaten your compliance posture and open the door to bad actors.
- Lack of visibility – In a hybrid cloud environment that could span multiple cloud service providers (CSPs) and third-party solutions, visibility is fragmented. Operations teams may experience bottlenecks as they troubleshoot issues and anomalies, lengthening their mean time to resolution (MTTR). These delays can also cause security risks if an anomaly turns out to be malware or a threat actor who has more time to explore your system.
- Delays in deployment – Every CSP has a different hierarchy, infrastructure, and requirements, and every on-premises environment will have unique characteristics. Integrating each account and system into a single network makes it nearly impossible to use a coherent, consistent architecture across the whole network. Organizations may be forced to create a patchwork solution that can disrupt operations and slow performance.
The Newest ACE Course: Learn to Master the Hybrid Cloud
Aviatrix’s ACE Program is the industry’s leading secure multicloud networking certification, with over 20,000 graduates worldwide. Its comprehensive trainings and specialized courses provide students with a deep understanding of how to build, operate, automate, scale, and secure single-, hybrid, or multicloud networks across all major cloud providers, as well as the Aviatrix Cloud Networking Platform.
The newest course, ACE Hybrid Cloud, empowers IT professionals to optimize hybrid cloud environments by implementing fast, consistent configurations with advanced routing and segmentation. It ensures only authorized traffic flows through the system, significantly enhancing security and performance. This live, instructor-led training provides key insights from industry experts as well as hands-on labs that walk you through each concept.
Students will walk through the Aviatrix’s transformative features for hybrid cloud environments, including:
- Programmatic deployment for seamless integration with existing environments
- Low-latency connectivity to global cloud providers
- Fully encrypted traffic at line-rate, meeting stringent compliance standards
- Advanced security capabilities for access control and regulatory compliance
- Operational consistency across on-prem and cloud networks
- Flexibility to choose Aviatrix on-prem edge devices as virtual or hardware appliances, or to use 3rd party routers or firewalls in on-premises locations.
Save a seat in the first ACE Hybrid Cloud training on March 4 or register interest for a future date.
Learn more about how Aviatrix’s Secure High-Performance Datacenter Edge solution enhances security, performance, and regulatory compliance in hybrid environments.