Cloud Data Center Architecture: Understanding the Hybrid Model

Venkata Ravella

Dec 08, 2022 / 4 min read

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Most organizations now host some of their data in the cloud. A cloud data center architecture offers several advantages compared to maintaining an on-premises data center.  

These advantages include the following:

  • Scalability. Additional resources can be quickly and easily added in the cloud.
  • Cost. Resources can be shared in the cloud so that cloud service providers can benefit from economies of scale.
  • Availability. Cloud services are protected by service level agreements, which may offer better guarantees than internal methods.
  • Security. Cloud service providers are responsible for securing part of an organization's infrastructure stack and are likely to be more experienced at it. 

Here we’ll describe the three cloud data center architectures: private, public, and hybrid. Additionally, we’ll look at the advantages of a hybrid model over the latter two.

Primary Cloud Data Center Architecture Options

Choosing a cloud service depends on the unique needs and interests of your company. No two are exactly alike, and choosing the right one will depend on understanding the differences and similarities.

  1. Private Cloud Data Center. Consists of infrastructure used exclusively by a single organization, providing greater control over operations. The private cloud offers dedicated infrastructure with secure access, which gives you more flexibility regarding access, compliance, and physical security.
  2. Public Cloud Data Center. Involves a third-party cloud provider, which owns and runs the physical infrastructure, such as servers and storage devices, and then delivers the cloud data services to users over the internet. It is cheaper to use public cloud data centers because you share cloud computing resources with other companies.
  3. Hybrid Cloud Data Center. A model in which data and applications move between servers and network infrastructure within on-premises data centers and in the cloud. Hybrid cloud data centers enable greater IT efficiency, automation, and agility, supporting new data and application workloads across dynamic network fabrics and virtual machines.

Hybrid Cloud Data Center Advantages

A hybrid cloud data center architecture is an evolutionary strategy that allows you to establish the right combination of cloud and traditional IT to suit your needs. With this architecture, workloads can be exchanged between environments as computing needs and budgets change. With this interchangeability, you can choose what data to store in public clouds and what to retain in private clouds, which gives you unparalleled flexibility.

Benefits that you can realize with a hybrid cloud data center compared to other cloud architectures include:

 

Agility

By customizing a hybrid cloud, you can meet clients' needs quickly. Besides linking old and new systems, a hybrid cloud can create an underlying structure that meets your business requirements. 

 

Scalability

As part of a hybrid cloud architecture, you can take advantage of the scalability provided by the public cloud. Depending on demand, you can scale up or down easily. Furthermore, you can delegate non-critical operations to the public cloud to reduce strain on the private cloud. 

 

Cloud Bursting

A hybrid cloud is advantageous if you have fluctuating application and data needs. Applications that generally run on private clouds can be configured to burst into a public cloud during high-demand periods. You can then meet spikes in demand with additional computing resources.

 

Remote Access

Unlike on-premises data centers, which experience significant lag times for remote access, hybrid cloud data centers can leverage cloud infrastructure to be accessible to your remote employees with minimal lag time.

 

Lower Spending on Infrastructure

With hybrid cloud capabilities, you can invest in fewer servers and rely on the public cloud for computing needs during peak demand periods.

With a hybrid cloud data center, you can have the best of both worlds: security, performance, reliability, scalability, and cost savings across on-premises data centers and multiple public and private clouds.

Chip makers with existing on-premises systems should consider a hybrid cloud environment. Cloud bursting can handle peak load requirements, while less portable workloads can remain on-premises.

Chip designers can work more efficiently, improve performance, and turn jobs around quickly in a hybrid cloud environment. It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is or how much infrastructure you have on-premises, electronic design automation (EDA) vendors like Synopsys make cloud adoption affordable and scalable for you.

Synopsys, EDA, and the Cloud

Synopsys is the industry’s largest provider of electronic design automation (EDA) technology used in the design and verification of semiconductor devices, or chips. With Synopsys Cloud, we’re taking EDA to new heights, combining the availability of advanced compute and storage infrastructure with unlimited access to EDA software licenses on-demand so you can focus on what you do best – designing chips, faster. Delivering cloud-native EDA tools and pre-optimized hardware platforms, an extremely flexible business model, and a modern customer experience, Synopsys has reimagined the future of chip design on the cloud, without disrupting proven workflows.

 

Take a Test Drive!

Synopsys technology drives innovations that change how people work and play using high-performance silicon chips. Let Synopsys power your innovation journey with cloud-based EDA tools. Sign up to try Synopsys Cloud for free!


About The Author

Venkata Ravella is vice president of Information Technology at Synopsys, where he leads a world-class IT infrastructure team that has built large-scale engineering and business infrastructure on private and public clouds. Over the last 25+ years, he has held various roles in IT, with the majority of his time focused on engineering environment and infrastructure. He has in-depth experience building high-performing engineering environments, both on-prem and in-cloud, with an emphasis on reliability, scalability, and security at their core.

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