When companies today think about server solutions, they most often choose between dedicated options and cloud environments. But why choose? Hybrid environments can combine the best of both worlds.
A hybrid server is a combination of on-premises servers with cloud computing using virtualization technology. This means that multiple tenants can share a dedicated server with a predetermined allocation of resources, resulting in cost savings and unique flexibility that is difficult to realize in fully dedicated options.
Who Should Use Hybrid Servers?
In the server infrastructure hierarchy, hybrid similar servers are ahead of dedicated servers not only in performance but also in cost, and after shared hosting and VPS (Virtual Private Server).
Although hybrid servers provide each user with dedicated resources, they cannot scale instantly like cloud servers - they must be manually migrated like dedicated servers. For the same reason, hybrid servers do not provide instant redundancy, but tenants can select multiple hybrid servers to create their own redundancy.
Access to Virtualization
If you are developing complex modern web applications, access to virtualized environments will greatly increase developer productivity. They can follow standard agile and DevOps methodologies, use deployment servers, add new virtual hosts, etc.
This eliminates the network congestion that can occur with shared hosting, as all configured resources will always be available for use.
Specific Location
As opposed to cloud-based solutions such as shared hosting or VPS, a hybrid environment runs on a single dedicated physical server. This means you have more flexibility in terms of, for example, regulatory compliance, data handling protocol, storage requirements and other operational procedures on the server.
Enhanced Security
Although a dedicated sector in a hybrid system is shared, it is strictly delimited between multiple users, each with access to a predetermined number of resources.
On such a computer, each tenant retains control over their specific environment. They can react quickly if something goes wrong (e.g., the server is attacked) and do not suffer from the "noisy neighbors" problem.
Management Flexibility
By creating a virtualized environment on a single server, there are many more options for customization, from installing a specific operating system to configuring staging, development and continuous integration servers, to creating clusters for load balancing. In addition, deployment processes are greatly simplified and rebooting is quickly realized.
Cost Savings
Hybrid servers tend to be more expensive than VPS or shared hosting, but much cheaper than renting a dedicated server as a separate tenant. This explains the fact that they represent a new step in a company's development process, providing the best of both options and similar functionality without a large capital investment.
On-Demand Support
If you choose a hosting firm, upgrading to a higher category hybrid server usually means increased support capabilities, which can be very important for minimizing server outages. However, unlike fixed servers, hybrid solutions are fully managed in most cases, so your workgroup can focus on building great products rather than operating the hardware.
Hybrid servers can now be used in a variety of scenarios that previously required a dedicated server. Some exceptions may include handling highly sensitive information (although hybrid servers have customizable data transfer protocols) and high server performance requirements. The good idea is that this is only applicable to a small minority of companies.
