Introduction

As the backbone of any business, your IT infrastructure needs to keep up with rapidly evolving technology so you can continue to compete and grow in the marketplace. It needs to be flexible and scalable enough to meet your increasing business requirements while also being secure and manageable for your IT staff.

An on-premises IT infrastructure gives IT professionals control over data, security, and performance. But on-premises IT can be difficult to manage and, without additional investment, it can become an upfront investment that may not meet future needs.

The cloud enables you to increase scalability, ease management, and access world-class solutions for nearly any business task. With minimal effort, you can add solutions to handle CRM, ERP, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, and communications. And it doesn’t require a big investment in new hardware and software or a large team to manage.

But an IT infrastructure hosted in the cloud brings concerns you don’t see with on-premises IT, and can introduce obstacles to your business:

Is the cloud secure enough to protect your data, especially healthcare, finance, and accounting information?

Will you have enough control over the solutions you use?

Can you use the cloud while still leveraging existing IT investments?

Will applications perform to the level you need?

Those questions naturally lead to another question: Is there a better way, something that offers the flexibility, scalability, and cost savings of the cloud with the security, performance, and control offered by on-premises IT?

The answer: Yes, and it’s an approach a growing number of businesses are embracing. It’s hybrid IT infrastructure.

Hybrid IT infrastructure offers the best of both worlds without sacrificing any of the advantages of either. This combination of on-premises IT and cloud services gives you the freedom to tailor your individual approach to IT. You decide which workloads to move to the cloud and which to keep on-premises, creating a customized infrastructure that provides serious benefits. Particularly for small and mid-sized businesses, it meets your needs by providing the flexibility and control you want without breaking the bank.

This eBook examines the rising trend in hybrid IT infrastructure, the benefits of this approach, and how you can intelligently create a hybrid IT infrastructure that will work for your organization.

“Hybrid IT is the wave of the future. It gives companies a chance to be flexible to an everchanging computing environment, while allowing us to do business in new ways.”—IT pro, Spiceworks survey1