Hybrid Cloud Application Scenarios Whitepaper (2021)

In recent years, hybrid cloud has rapidly developed both domestically and internationally, expanding the cloud computing environment and enriching technical capabilities and solutions. Enterprises increasingly adopt hybrid cloud architectures to satisfy differentiated needs in special scenarios.

Definition and Concept – While the industry lacks a single definition, hybrid cloud generally refers to the integration of two or more IT environments (public cloud, private cloud, edge cloud, container cloud, on‑premises data centers, etc.) via dedicated networks such as leased lines or VPNs, enabling resource interconnection and unified service delivery.

Main Products and Solutions – Major providers offer various hybrid cloud offerings: Alibaba Cloud provides native hybrid solutions and VMware on Alibaba Cloud; Tencent Cloud delivers TKE‑based hybrid stacks with cross‑cloud scheduling; UCloud integrates public, private, and industry clouds for regulated sectors; Dell’s DTCP combines resource, data, and innovation platforms with AI‑driven monitoring and a flexible “Flex on Demand” pricing model.

Scenario 1 – Application Load Scheduling – For e‑commerce, gaming, and live‑streaming services, hybrid cloud enables elastic scaling by keeping baseline workloads on private clouds and bursting to public clouds during traffic spikes (e.g., Double‑11 sales), using elastic scaling groups, intelligent DNS, and load balancers to balance and auto‑scale resources.

Scenario 2 – Disaster Recovery – Hybrid cloud provides rapid, on‑demand disaster‑recovery environments, reducing RTO/RPO by synchronizing data across multiple clouds, leveraging on‑demand resource provisioning, and employing multi‑cloud resource management and automated failover mechanisms.

Scenario 3 – Hybrid Deployment – Sensitive data and latency‑critical components reside in on‑premises IDC, while front‑end and application logic run in public clouds; edge computing extends this model by placing business logic on edge devices with centralized cloud control.

Scenario 4 – Hybrid Cloud DevOps – A unified development pipeline spans public and private clouds, allowing developers to use on‑demand public‑cloud resources for testing while keeping production workloads on private clouds for stability, thus improving delivery speed and quality.

Scenario 5 – Data Analytics – By consolidating disparate business data into a hybrid‑cloud data lake (often hosted in a private cloud for compliance), enterprises can perform large‑scale analytics and machine‑learning tasks, breaking data silos and enabling comprehensive insights.

Source: Cloud Computing Open Source Industry Alliance.