Moving to the hybrid cloud

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The first time I used public cloud services, an entire new world opened up to me. Honestly, it was even a bit overwhelming. Suddenly I had a pool of resources at my fingertips that could do more than I ever could myself in our private infrastructure. I had public APIs, data analytics, IoT and cognitive services readily at my disposal. To me, a hybrid cloud offers the best of both worlds. It gives you power and flexibility while maintaining governance. Let me tell you why.

Let your creativity run wild

Back to my first experience in the public cloud. It really felt like there was almost no limit to what I could do and I was no longer restricted local resources/API’s etc. I admit, I’m not the most gifted developer. I always seem to struggle with mobile push notifications for example. But in the cloud I could pick a mobile API and just make it work. No need to write my own code, no installation procedure and I didn’t need to worry about compatibility issues.

The same goes for services like banking transactions, by selecting a banking API, the app I was working on automatically supported popular payment services such as credit card, PayPal and iDEAL.

Learning new skills

Secondly, in a hybrid cloud you have the freedom to experiment. In a private infrastructure with say twenty developers, a company would need twenty separate environments for all their developers to experiment on their own. This is dreadful to manage and maintain – any IT manager could tell you that. With a hybrid cloud, every developer can have his or her own environment at hardly any expense.

This means you can develop at your own pace and experiment with different approaches a company would usually not allow. Like fail fast for example. You could easily break down your environment and build it up again within minutes. Having this freedom to experiment makes you learn from your mistakes. And you’re learning new skills at the same time, like installing new services, providing operational support and writing new code.

Free up resources

Last but not least a hybrid cloud makes life easier for your IT manager. As you know, when given the choice between production, acceptance and development, an IT manager will always choose production. The flexibility of a hybrid cloud lets you free up resources and scale up if and when needed.

You can also run sensitive workloads in the cloud. While a hybrid cloud securely connects apps, data, and services, your private environment protects your sensitive assets. Platforms like IBM’s Bluemix are designed to feel like another node on your network and are securely connected to your business, with either VPN or Direct Link technology.

All in all, with a hybrid cloud you are no longer confined by the four walls of your datacenter. You can add services you would have had difficulty building on your own, while having the freedom to experiment and learning new skills. In my personal opinion a hybrid cloud enables you to become an even more proficient developer while optimizing your business’ flexibility and realizing costs savings.

Want to know more?

Sign up for a free trial and get access to explore any service you want and start building your web or mobile app. Or read more about the Bluemix Platform. In the coming months I’m giving a workshop to help you understand better what hybrid cloud can do for your business. View all the sessions here.