What Do You Think of Hybrid Environments?
I have been working with several different people setting up hybrid environments. With pieces on-premise, and pieces in the cloud, it gets pretty interesting very quickly. There are a number of things I’ve learned, and one ruling that has just been issued certainly weighs heavily on configuration thoughts.
First, something that is becoming critically apparent, you need to make sure you have a monitoring solution in place. Keeping track of the resources across those boundaries (particularly SQL Server of course) is critical as you start to break apart the "where" of hosting and focus on the functionality.
It seems as systems are split along the "what belongs where" boundaries, it becomes easier to miss a piece or two of the architecture. Make sure you have a solid monitoring solution in place, Idera is a partner with SSWUG and has an interesting tool available for evaluation – check it out here. There are others as well – just make sure you have a solid solution in place that helps you keep track of the moving parts.
One of the things we have seen getting missed are the backup process, and those pesky maintenance processes. Make sure you have them in place for all of your SQL instances, without regard to where those instances live. It’s easy to set up a new instance and be on your way – just for a small piece of your application. This is true of on-premise as well as cloud-based.
Second, take a look at the recent ruling regarding search and access to cloud-based storage. It’s a bit chilling and certain to be challenged. But as it stands with this ruling, search of cloud-based storage and access to international storage locations is being treated differently than you may be expecting.
As you create your solutions, think carefully about what is stored, where it’s stored and what the implications are for protected data. It’s not that we’re all criminals and protecting our nefarious data stores, it’s more about access, controls, and proper protection of data.
Check out the ruling, check your monitoring – and post a note – how are these hybrid solutions and some of the industry activity around them, impacting you and your installations?