What is hybrid cloud hosting?

[Jenny211]

I run a small graphic design company. Our growing demand for storage space made us think about cloud storage for flexible storage and protection.
Recently, I came across a new term, Hybrid cloud hosting. This blog http://www.truenorthitg.com/5-reasons-hybrid-driving-business-success/ claims its advantages.
Is anyone using this technology? Please, share your thoughts.
 

[digip]

Do you host a lot of files, that cause issues with your network for customer downloads? If not, you probably don't need third party hosting for files, redundancy, or backups, but if your data is critical for customers and need co-location, high speed access, then try a cloud based solution like AWS or some cloud CDN type stuff, Akamai, etc. Most of them aren't very cheap if you don't have a lot of revenue coming in to offset(although Amazon can be a quick cheap storage solution in most cases), so if you're still getting started as a small design company, weigh your options to what is cost effective and relevant to your needs.

If your hosting has limits on storage, then obviously it becomes an issue, but check with your host first before just going all CDN delivery on stuff, might be cheaper. Changing hosts might also be something to think about, but that is more about moving everything vs just expanding, which might be easier with your existing hosting company, depending on prices. I personally have multiple domains on DreamHost, which has unlimited(at least in theory/wording) space, depending on the plan you go with, but if you need dedicated, single IP, then it gets a bit more expensive, where I am on shared hosting which is way more affordable. I have multiple domains for one price per year, about $120/yr, and other than that, only other money I have to put out is the DNS renewals which are ~$12/yr, so it's affordable for me in that respect, but I don't have dedicated servers, which is at the mercy of network down time for updates and other issues that effect the shared servers. a CDN with redundancy, would be better, but is also more expensive, and not something I myself need, but that's more business model and budget stuff to work out where your needs are.

[numb3rs]

What are you guys using for storage now? Have you considered a NAS onsite? Images are going to saturate your internet if you constantly move images back and forth. Im not a big fan of online storage other than backups. If you invest in the asset and have your storage on premises you'll be much happier. If you really want to invest in asset there is always a SAN. I guess we would need to know a bit more like amount of data, amount of employees, your internet speeds, and what your budget looks like.

Edited September 24, 2017 by numb3rs

[digip]

3 hours ago, numb3rs said:

What are you guys using for storage now? Have you considered a NAS onsite? Images are going to saturate your internet if you constantly move images back and forth. Im not a big fan of online storage other than backups. If you invest in the asset and have your storage on premises you'll be much happier. If you really want to invest in asset there is always a SAN. I guess we would need to know a bit more like amount of data, amount of employees, your internet speeds, and what your budget looks like.

Self hosting is an option, but in this instance, I'd avoid it. Why expose your internal org, when you don't need to?

Plenty of hosting and storage options, some cheap, some expensive. Depends on your needs. I just don't think self hosting and sharing your company network with the outside world is a best practice, unless you want to get popped and then pivoted to the rest of your internal devices(especially if your a freelance who works from home and have personal machines on the same network - I work from home so just speaking from experience).

This is the reason for things like cloud storage exist, in the event files get whacked online, you should have in house backup copies and off site recovery solutions/backups in place in addition, but that is just how I would go if I had the money. An AWS bucket or Azure server might be cheap enough, or again, talk to your hosting provider, see if they are worth staying with or finding a better all-in-one hosted solution, vs paying for extra storage another host might include in the yearly plan.

[barry99705]

On 9/24/2017 at 8:32 AM, numb3rs said:

What are you guys using for storage now? Have you considered a NAS onsite? Images are going to saturate your internet if you constantly move images back and forth. Im not a big fan of online storage other than backups. If you invest in the asset and have your storage on premises you'll be much happier. If you really want to invest in asset there is always a SAN. I guess we would need to know a bit more like amount of data, amount of employees, your internet speeds, and what your budget looks like.

Burn it with fire!  NAS is a four letter word for my employer.  We won't sell them to clients, and we won't work on them if the client buys one on their own. None of them are worth a shit, and they'll all eat your data eventually.

[Dave-ee Jones]

6 hours ago, barry99705 said:

Burn it with fire!  NAS is a four letter word for my employer.  We won't sell them to clients, and we won't work on them if the client buys one on their own. None of them are worth a shit, and they'll all eat your data eventually.

There's nothing wrong with a good NAS. I would recommend one if you're storing lots of images or video data (e.g. security cameras). You could even have the NAS sync with an online database, and do offline backups as well to an RDX or something.

Sounds like you had a bad experience with a NAS or 2 and just completely disregarded them as network-attached storage at all. Bias much, haha. You didn't give a proper reason as to why they're bad anyway..

[numb3rs]

Quote

Burn it with fire!  NAS is a four letter word for my employer.  <--- haha! :X

 I have had success with them. Sounds like one somewhere really ruined your day/week. Just got to use RED WD drives man. If shes uploading from clients to on premises I would recommend an actual server, but you need a decent internet connection. I would also recommend proper security on your edge as well for anything facing the WAN. Too many unanswered questions.

[barry99705]

7 hours ago, Dave-ee Jones said:

There's nothing wrong with a good NAS. I would recommend one if you're storing lots of images or video data (e.g. security cameras). You could even have the NAS sync with an online database, and do offline backups as well to an RDX or something.

Sounds like you had a bad experience with a NAS or 2 and just completely disregarded them as network-attached storage at all. Bias much, haha. You didn't give a proper reason as to why they're bad anyway..

Or 20...  Everything from Netgear to QNap.  Every damn one of them shit a drive, then trashed the data trying to recover.  We've replaced every one with a san of some type and haven't had a problem yet.  They cost more, but so far have been so much more stable.

[Dave-ee Jones]

11 hours ago, barry99705 said:

Or 20...  Everything from Netgear to QNap.  Every damn one of them shit a drive, then trashed the data trying to recover.  We've replaced every one with a san of some type and haven't had a problem yet.  They cost more, but so far have been so much more stable.

Sounds like you've messed the RAID up for each of them, haha. I've setup quite a few QNAP NAS' (actually have one right here, currently being setup), and they require RAID setup and about a day of RAID synchronising, but it's no where near the time spent trying to setup a SAN. I've never had any problems with HDDs dying as of yet, but they do it anyway whether they're in NAS', PCs or SANs, so it seems a bit bias to think it's the NAS' fault :P

You've also got to make sure you're using compatible HDDs/SSDs and make sure that they are good ones (don't get some random brand that does 10TB ones, get proper business level ones if possible).