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Real-World Outages Make the Case for Hybrid Cloud

Jim Rapoza

The amount of data, research and case studies on the benefits and effectiveness of hybrid cloud keeps growing. Yet some people are still skeptical, thinking that it’s just a play to keep data centers relevant in a public cloud age.


Well, sometimes it takes a splash of ice-cold water to wake people up to reality. And some recent outages of cloud-based systems may be just the thing to bring hybrid cloud skeptics around.

Probably the biggest example of this was the outage of Amazon’s S3 service in late February, which left many sites down or performing poorly for hours. In the public cloud business, there’s no bigger name than Amazon, and they are definitely the safe choice; Amazon is probably the closest thing the cloud has to the old adage of “no one ever got fired for buying IBM.”

There were a lot of lessons to come out of the outage, one of them being that a service mainly used for cloud storage was still able to bring down so many sites. But that’s for another article.

But one lesson I found particularly interesting had to do with the benefits that came to businesses taking a hybrid cloud approach.

Typically, businesses turn to a hybrid cloud to add more reliability to their on-premise systems. With public cloud integrated with their on-premise infrastructure, they are able to add extensive disaster recovery and backup capabilities, while also leveraging the public cloud for a performance boost or to meet peak traffic demands.

However, the recent public cloud issues have shown that sometimes on-premise can become a backup for the public cloud. That’s because when the public cloud has had issues, organizations with a hybrid approach have been able to leverage their on-premise infrastructure to essentially provide backup protection for their public cloud services, allowing them to keep their services up and running in cases where businesses that were 100% public cloud were stuck waiting for the outage to end.

That seems to be a pretty good argument for how hybrid cloud delivers even more benefits than many expect. Businesses adopting a hybrid approach don’t have their heads in the cloud when it comes to understanding the benefits it provides. For them, hybrid cloud is making sure that they see nothing but blue skies in performance and reliability, even when the public cloud is experiencing some nasty storms.

Jim Rapoza is an Aberdeen Senior Research Analyst.

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Real-World Outages Make the Case for Hybrid Cloud

Jim Rapoza

The amount of data, research and case studies on the benefits and effectiveness of hybrid cloud keeps growing. Yet some people are still skeptical, thinking that it’s just a play to keep data centers relevant in a public cloud age.


Well, sometimes it takes a splash of ice-cold water to wake people up to reality. And some recent outages of cloud-based systems may be just the thing to bring hybrid cloud skeptics around.

Probably the biggest example of this was the outage of Amazon’s S3 service in late February, which left many sites down or performing poorly for hours. In the public cloud business, there’s no bigger name than Amazon, and they are definitely the safe choice; Amazon is probably the closest thing the cloud has to the old adage of “no one ever got fired for buying IBM.”

There were a lot of lessons to come out of the outage, one of them being that a service mainly used for cloud storage was still able to bring down so many sites. But that’s for another article.

But one lesson I found particularly interesting had to do with the benefits that came to businesses taking a hybrid cloud approach.

Typically, businesses turn to a hybrid cloud to add more reliability to their on-premise systems. With public cloud integrated with their on-premise infrastructure, they are able to add extensive disaster recovery and backup capabilities, while also leveraging the public cloud for a performance boost or to meet peak traffic demands.

However, the recent public cloud issues have shown that sometimes on-premise can become a backup for the public cloud. That’s because when the public cloud has had issues, organizations with a hybrid approach have been able to leverage their on-premise infrastructure to essentially provide backup protection for their public cloud services, allowing them to keep their services up and running in cases where businesses that were 100% public cloud were stuck waiting for the outage to end.

That seems to be a pretty good argument for how hybrid cloud delivers even more benefits than many expect. Businesses adopting a hybrid approach don’t have their heads in the cloud when it comes to understanding the benefits it provides. For them, hybrid cloud is making sure that they see nothing but blue skies in performance and reliability, even when the public cloud is experiencing some nasty storms.

Jim Rapoza is an Aberdeen Senior Research Analyst.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...