Cloud hosting service is a hosting option for websites or business entities with dynamic needs. Under the purview of cloud hosting, a website draws its computing resources from a network of physical servers across the web. Therefore, there are no hardware or infrastructural restrictions as is in the case of a traditional web hosting environment. Companies can easily upscale or downscale their server requirement as the needs of their website modify. They dont have to worry about the migration cost as demand can be raised in real time and payment is determined as per the usage of the cloud computing resources.

The scalability and flexibility offered by cloud hosting are driving more and more businesses towards it. Businesses looking to transition towards cloud hosting are faced with three options: the public, private and hybrid cloud. All three platforms have pros and cons, and a careful analysis is relevant to get an answer to the question Is hybrid cloud the future of cloud hosting?

Amazon Web Services or AWS, Google AppEngine, and Windows Azure Service Platforms are examples of public cloud platforms. Providing infrastructure as a service or IaaS, these platforms offer the perfect solution for a dynamic web hosting need. The end user gets a piece of the bandwidth space, hardware resources and applications of a larger infrastructure that is run, managed and maintained by major stakeholders in the cloud hosting world. Therefore, the public cloud is one of the most inexpensive and suitable cloud hosting options.

On the other hand, private cloud has a very dedicated and closed environment. The infrastructure of private cloud is used by a single company or organization. All the resources, disk space and bandwidth of the private cloud is used to store up information of a given enterprise. Private cloud is regarded very safe, however, to run this massive and technical infrastructure requires both money and resources. This is the primary reason why only big companies, Government agencies, financial institutions, research labs and hospitals can afford private cloud hosting infrastructure.

Finally, Hybrid Cloud is a mix of both public and private cloud. Each platform has a distinct use within a single organization or enterprise. While sensitive and critical company data is secured on a private cloud, less sensitive information is put away in a public cloud platform. There are more than one-way hybrid cloud can be incorporated within a companys infrastructure:

According to a survey conducted by Hybrid Hive, a news and views platform that digs the latest developments from the world of Hybrid cloud to assist IT decision makers across the globe predicts that many enterprises will rely on Hybrid Cloud. The survey that included the participation of 1,050 ITDMs (IT decision makers) across seven countries revealed the following

Taking the cue from the above revelation, lets focus on the next segment.

The Benefits of Hybrid Cloud

Through Hybrid cloud hosting enterprises can benefit from the best of both worlds. While private cloud offers greater level of granular security and control, public cloud is regarded more scalable, flexible and affordable. But what about the security aspect of public cloud? Although public cloud is traditionally considered less secure, the advancement in cloud technologies and attaching of big names like Amazon, Google and Microsoft has made the public cloud space also reliable and safe.

Having stated that, certain agencies or companies deal with highly classified data on behalf of their business and clients or have a data protocol to follow. In such a scenario, private cloud is a more viable option.

Therefore, a mix and match approach works best for dynamic and ever changing needs of enterprises today.

In comparison to the public cloud, companies can have a far greater control over their IT Infrastructure in the case of Hybrid Cloud. All the sensitive data can be stored on the private cloud which has multi layers of encryption, while not so critical information can be secured on private cloud setup. Enterprises can identify critical and non-critical data and allocate resources accordingly, without incurring unnecessary expenditure.

The network of hybrid infrastructure can be configured in such a way that all the important or critical data are pushed to private cloud in a very secured manner. If the infrastructure of a private cloud is built optimally through periodic software and hardware up gradation, it fosters business efficiency. The load time of the website will improve, and server requests will process faster.

Cutting down the cost of IT operations is the biggest challenges for enterprises today. Through the Hybrid cloud, companies can cut down on the cost of operation to a large extent, without compromising on network security. Enterprises that only rely on private cloud, overtime will face a situation wherein the cost of upgrading the infrastructure of private set-up is very expensive. On the other hand, there is no such compulsion on a public cloud platform since cost of ownership is less on public cloud. Therefore, dividing company data on both platforms will be cost effective.

Limitations of Hybrid Cloud

To run a hybrid cloud infrastructure requires skills and resources. If an enterprise is considering adopting hybrid cloud it is imperative to look for system administrators with requisite skill set to oversee the transition.

This will depend upon that existing IT infrastructure of the company. If an enterprise is moving to Private cloud to Hybrid, the cost is likely to reduce. However, if its the opposite case, the cost can escalate. So, unless there is an extreme security concern, moving to hybrid cloud is a waste of resources.

The network of hybrid cloud is very complex. A greater level of data management in terms of security and deployment is important to understand the distribution of information over public and private cloud set-ups.

According to RightScale, a cloud management platform, the Hybrid cloud will be a preferred enterprises strategy. However, there are parallel trends that will impact the growth and popularity of Hybrid cloud infrastructure. As per RightScale 2017 State of the Cloud Report

The study also revealed that cost optimization would be the primary focus of cloud spending, which is currently estimated to be around 30 to 45%. Therefore, the future of Hybrid cloud will depend upon the sophistication and advancement of public cloud domains and criticality of data that enterprises are dealing with individually. Public Cloud may well be the entry product for Cloud Hosting and then companies may evolve to a hybrid or private cloud of their choice over time.

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Is hybrid cloud the future of cloud hosting? - KnowTechie - KnowTechie

Symmetry to Provide Next Generation, Secure and Scalable SAP HANA Cloud Hosting Services for United VARs Customers in over 80 countries

ORLANDO, FL--(Marketwired - May 16, 2017) - SAPPHIRE NOW - United VARs, the world's largest alliance of SAP channel partners, today announced it has selected Symmetry as its worldwide infrastructure partner for the United VARs Cloud Solution for SAP HANA, a globally connected cloud hosting platform engineered specifically for mission-critical enterprise SAP applications. Symmetry brings more than 22 years of SAP expertise to host and manage deployments of the United VARs Cloud Solution for SAP HANA on its expanding global cloud platform.

The United VARs Cloud Solution for SAP HANA will offer its embedded base of over 8,000 customers a cohesive cloud services platform for SAP HANA and SAP applications, including disaster recovery, state-of-the-art monitoring and 99.999% uptime Service Level Agreements. The purpose-built, high-performance cloud architecture provides self-healing features at the storage, compute, security and network levels; a user portal; proactive monitoring of hosted environments; and 24x7x365 global support. With United VARs' and Symmetry's deep SAP expertise, customers can more effectively manage cost and complexity concerns associated with migrating legacy SAP applications to the new SAP HANA architecture and tuning both traditional SAP and SAP HANA environments for optimal performance.

"There are serious capital and operational expense considerations when migrating to SAP HANA on-premise, due to the system's need for a complete hardware and architectural upgrade as well as new management software and skills," said William Fellows, Founder and Research VP, 451 Research. "451 Research believes the cost and complexity of on-premise SAP HANA implementation will accelerate SAP customer migration to the cloud."

The United VARs Cloud Solution for SAP HANA is being deployed on Symmetry's expanding converged cloud infrastructure platform through a network of certified Tier 3 data centers with multi-path connectivity to all major network providers, and built-in flexibility for dynamically allocating resources as needs or priorities change. For United VARs' member companies, this infrastructure helps them drive new revenue streams by adding a global cloud platform option to expand their portfolio of capabilities for a more comprehensive, end-to-end solution aimed at driving customers' migration to SAP HANA.

"The United VARs Cloud Solution for SAP HANA will be a strategic driver for United VARs - providing our 40-plus member companies with the best possible cloud deployment option for SAP HANA, with a cost structure that creates a competitive advantage in the market," said Detlef Mehlman, Director of United VARs and Head of Business Development International at All for One Steeb AG, a founding member of United VARs and SAP Platinum Partner. "This new global solution is also a major differentiator for United VARs -- we are now the only organization in the world that can combine the localized expertise of a regional specialist with the global resources of a large consulting company, covering SAP application management and cloud infrastructure. This is a particularly compelling value proposition for international enterprises."

Symmetry has more than 22 years of experience in SAP technical management across on-premise, hosted, cloud and hybrid cloud environments. The company has a strong track record of hosting successful SAP cloud implementations for enterprises across diverse industries including: Steel and Pipe Supply Company, Inc. (SPSCI); Everywhere Global; Karma Automotive; Carlisle Interconnect Technologies (CarlisleIT); and New England Biolabs.

"For SAP customers looking to fully realize the business-transformational effects of SAP HANA, United VARs and Symmetry deliver far greater SAP-specific expertise than can be found with general-purpose cloud service providers," said Kurt Andersen, Chief Marketing Officer of Symmetry. "Over the last 22 years, we have developed a deep understanding of SAP customer needs and a proven track record of managing, tuning and hosting the most complex SAP environments. This experience, combined with a global cloud footprint that can support any business, anywhere, will provide United VARs with a true competitive advantage in the market and a compelling value proposition to their customers."

About United VARs United VARs is the world's largest global alliance of SAP channel partners. Functioning as a single SAP Platinum Partner, United VARs includes more than 40 resellers in 80+ countries serving more than 8,000 customers.

About Symmetry Symmetry is a leading application management and hybrid cloud hosting solution provider with deep expertise in SAP application management. An SAP partner since 2005, Symmetry is certified in SAP Hosting, Cloud and SAP HANA Operations. As a true extension of your IT team, Symmetry places a laser focus on the customer's experience and offers highly flexible, tailored solutions to meet the unique business needs of enterprise clients. Symmetry supports global enterprises across all industries through a customer centric high-touch approach that delivers deep technical expertise combined with scalable, redundant, high availability cloud infrastructure supported by a 24x7x365 operations support model. With a long history and proven methodology for delivering hybrid solutions comprised of managed private cloud hosting infrastructure with enterprise application management services, Symmetry delivers IT solutions that help reduce the total cost of ownership and maximize the performance and security of our customers' most mission critical systems.

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United VARs Selects Symmetry to Provide Global Cloud Platform for SAP HANA(R) - Marketwired (press release)

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Synergy Enables Mixed Workload Management on a Single Platform

ORLANDO, FL--(Marketwired - May 15, 2017) - SAPPHIRE NOW --Symmetry, a leading enterprise application management and cloud hosting solutions provider, today announced it has further enhanced its cloud hosting platform engineered to support and manage production SAP and SAP HANA workloads alongside traditional IT workloads.

Symmetry, a certified SAP Hosting, Cloud and SAP HANA Operations provider, has certified and deployedHewlett Packard Enterprise(HPE) Synergy, the world's first platform architected for Composable Infrastructure -- a new category of infrastructure that accelerates application delivery in both traditional and new IT environments.

By being one of the first managed service providers to deploy HPE Synergy, Symmetry has increased its ability to provide comprehensive and highly compliant virtual private cloud solutions supporting a wide range of IT workloads spanning SAP, SAP HANA, other critical third party applications and traditional IT workloads -- all from a single platform.

HPE Synergy enables Symmetry to segment discreet resource pools for specific customer applications. For example, giving an SAP HANA workload its own prescribed mix of performance and availability, while at the same time -- and on the same platform -- giving a Hadoop deployment its own tier optimized for scale. It delivers the high reliability required for systems like SAP HANA while allowing the flexibility to include traditional IT workloads on the same platform and the ability to price both accordingly.

Previously, service providers had to maintain separate platforms as isolated islands of resources, making capacity utilization and resource allocation very difficult. This placed real limits on customer flexibility and resulted in higher infrastructure costs that had to be passed on to customers. CIOs were forced to choose one cloud service provider for performance-sensitive or scale applications and another for more mainstream workloads. The addition of HPE Synergy enables Symmetry to easily handle both, making management of hybrid cloud and hybrid IT workloads through a single pane of glass a reality.

"HPE Synergy is a technical differentiator that validates Symmetry's vision, our technical and business understanding of our clients IT needs, and what we have done to create a next-generation private cloud platform," said Christian Teeft, CTO and SVP of Cloud Services, Symmetry. "More importantly, we are now delivering industry-first flexibility and pricing control for mixed workload management backed by a deep technical expertise and a collaborative, high touch customer experience."

"HPE Synergy is the ideal platform for forward thinking service providers specializing in hybrid infrastructure and managing multiple workloads -- from traditional IT to cloud," said Paul Miller, Vice President of Marketing, Converged Data Center Infrastructure Group at HPE. "Symmetry's expanded platform, powered by HPE Synergy, further solidifies its role as a leading national provider with the capability and credentials to deliver and manage hybrid cloud solutions that support complex, business critical applications."

The platform also features leading edge technologies such as Cisco's Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), and Palo Alto Networks firewalls that together enable new levels of customer self-service and software-defined management. It is supported by a comprehensive automation and orchestration platform that enables customers to deploy the resources they need, when they need them -- along with real-time visibility into performance metrics and usage. Technical advancements are focused on maximizing redundancy, optimizing disaster recovery, and delivering high availability services.

About Symmetry Symmetry is a leading applications management and hybrid cloud hosting solution provider with deep expertise in SAP application management.An SAP partner since 2005, Symmetry is certified in SAP Hosting, Cloud and SAP HANA Operations.As a true extension of your IT team, Symmetry places a laser focus on the customer's experience and offers highly flexible, tailored solutions to meet the unique business needs of enterprise clients.Symmetry supports global enterprises across all industries through a customer centric high-touch approach that delivers deep technical expertise combined with scalable, redundant, high availability cloud infrastructure supported by a 24x7x365 operations support model. With a long history and proven methodology for delivering hybrid solutions comprised of managed private cloud hosting infrastructure with enterprise application management services, Symmetry delivers IT solutions that help reduce the total cost of ownership and maximize the performance and security of our customers' most mission critical systems. Learn more at http://www.symmetrycorp.com

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Symmetry Redefines Enterprise Cloud Hosting for SAP and Other Critical Workloads - Marketwired (press release)

The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) is working on a massive project to migrate the South African government to cloud services, said its chief technology officer Pandelani Munyai.

SITA is doing an application analysis, gathering information from all government departments to find out what software they use and which applications they already own, aspart of the initial stages of the project.

Munyai made the statementduring a panel discussion at the 2017 MyBroadband Cloud, Hosting, and Security Conference.

He said SITA has set itself deadlines, which have beencommunicated to government departments to ensure the project remains on track.

Munyai said there is a huge appetite from the government to migrate services into the cloud.

There were issues with infrastructure in South Africa, however, which he said were not unique to the country.

Other African countries face the same challenges, with limited government infrastructure spending, saidMunyai. Our infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired.

For this reason, SITA has embarked on a tender process to partner with private industry players to ensure it receives reliable connectivity to cloud services.

Connectivity is a very serious issue for cloud services. Those services in the cloud should be accessed by people in rural areas, he said.

Munyai believes operators, including Vodacom and MTN, will reduce their data prices over time, making access to cloud services more affordable for South Africans.

Munyai also revealed that the South African government is looking at Internet of Things applications, especially in the light of affordable narrowband networks like SqwidNet launching in South Africa.

IoT networks can be used for various functions, including utility meter monitoring, health services, and vehicle tracking.

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SITA working on massive government cloud migration project - MyBroadband

MyBroadbands 2017 Cloud, Hosting, and Security Conference took place at the Gallagher Convention Centre on 10 May.

The conference provided a platform for IT executives and managers to interact and do business with South Africas top cloud and hosting providers.

The event attracted a record number of delegates, with 1,900 IT executives and decision makers attending the event.

These delegates were treated to presentations from the top cloud, hosting, and security experts in South Africa, and were able to visit stands and exhibitions from the countrys top IT companies.

Radio 702s Aki Anastasiou was the MC atthe event, with speakers from Amazon Web Services, BCX, SensePost, Dimension Data, Connection Telecom, SITA, Huawei, and many other leading organisations.

The photos belowprovide an overview ofthe event.

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2017 MyBroadband Cloud Conference in Photos - MyBroadband