The Advantages and Disadvantages of a Hybrid IT Strategy

A hybrid IT environment, as its name suggests, is a combination of resources that are on-premises and in the cloud. The best hybrid IT strategy, as a result, focuses on the services that orchestrate the way these two platforms work together and allows them to act in a much more powerful way than either one could be on its own.

For many, hybrid IT is seen as a way to address rising costs, generate better flexibility, and create more data deployment options —  all at the same time. There can, however, be downsides to this type of configuration depending on the situation. Indeed, a hybrid IT strategy will bring with it many legitimate advantages and disadvantages that you need to be aware of moving forward. 

For many, hybrid IT is seen as a way to address rising costs, generate better flexibility, and create more data deployment options —  all at the same time. There can, however, be downsides to this type of configuration depending on the situation. Indeed, a hybrid IT strategy will bring with it many legitimate advantages and disadvantages that you need to be aware of moving forward. 

Here are some advantages to using a Hybrid IT Strategy.

A Hybrid IT Tailors Your Work Approach

One of the major advantages of a hybrid IT strategy comes by way of the fact that you can now tailor the resources you're using to the workload you're actually trying to accomplish. To put it another way, you've suddenly got more options available to you in terms of not only what you want to do, but how you should best approach that given the circumstances.

With a hybrid IT environment, you have the option of using the cloud or your local drive depending on the work you're engaged in at the moment. Anything that must be completed online (like those tasks that rely heavily on communication and collaboration) can be accessed from anywhere, but anything that doesn't need to be in the cloud can remain local.

Cost Savings Begin Almost Immediately

This bleeds directly into another one of the major advantages of a hybrid IT strategy: you unlock new opportunities for cost savings almost immediately. With hybrid IT, you get the best of both worlds. 

You're still getting the scalability, the agility, and the flexibility of the cloud, but also the control of your own environment. You don’t have to pay for a single IT solution that you don't expressly need and you get to enjoy benefits like fixed, predictable costs as well. For this reason alone, it's easy to see why so many businesses are crafting IT systems that are headed in this direction.

A Hybrid IT Resurrects Your Legacy Systems

Part of the goal of digital transformation and moving into the cloud in the first place involves freeing yourself from the restrictions of those legacy systems you've depended on for years. But at the same time, there will be systems that are just far too important to get rid of. But due to a myriad of different reasons certain aspects of your legacy infrastructure may not be compatible with a fully cloud-based environment. In a hybrid IT strategy, this is something you don't have to worry about.

When you embrace hybrid technology, you don't actually have to completely eradicate those previously used systems. Anything that you absolutely must keep around can be maintained and everything else can pushed forward into a new generation of tech.

A Hybrid IT Leads to Better Security

Another major pro of a hybrid IT strategy involves the better level of security that these environments bring with them. It provides you a more customised approach to meeting your security needs.

The fact of the matter is that not everything needs to be stored in the cloud — depending on your industry, doing so could create a host of unique challenges in terms of data security alone. In a hybrid IT environment, you have access to far more options with regards to security than you otherwise would —  allowing you to address these issues on a case-to-case basis rather than with an all or nothing approach.

But there are some downsides to a Hybrid IT system that you also need to be aware about such as:

Hybrid IT Requires Expertise You Might Not Have

On the flip side of the equation, however, comes the matter of expertise. A hybrid IT environment requires an enormous amount of expertise to create, operate. and maintain over the long haul. And depending on the size of your organisation, that is expertise you might not have access to.

It can definitely be harder to keep track of all the systems, where they're currently located, and how they're all interacting with one another if you're doing so on your own. This is one of the major reasons why a lot of businesses choose to partner with a managed services provider for all of their hybrid IT needs as it helps eliminates this type of disadvantage entirely.

A More Challenging Integration

A similar disadvantage is the fact that integration will be far more challenging in a hybrid IT environment than it would be if you were moving everything or nothing into the cloud.

You have to ensure that all of your solutions are compatible with each other, which can be difficult if some are in the cloud and some are not. A hybrid IT environment is great for a lot of reasons, but it also creates more opportunities for things to go wrong in terms of bringing all of these separate pieces and parts together to act as a more cohesive whole. 

Powernet: Creating a Better Hybrid IT Strategy, Together

At Powernet, we understand how important hybrid IT is to your larger business strategy, which is why, in our position as a trusted managed service provider, we want to help you unlock as many of the advantages with as few of the disadvantages as possible. From cloud services designed to unlock a bold new level of efficiency to decades of expert insight we can use to better align your IT with your major business objectives, we're prepared to work hard to build you the infrastructure you need when you need it the most.

If you'd like to find out more about the advantages and disadvantages of a hybrid IT strategy, or if you'd just like to discuss your own personal situation with someone in a little more detail, contact Powernet today.