Hybrid cloud models continue to outpace pure-public (and pure-private) models for most organizations. There’s value in being able to leverage the cloud for a variety of reasons from periodic, expanding compute resources to dev and test environments. Whatever the reason, hybrid models are here to stay.
One of the difficulties experienced in executing on such models, however, is connecting them to the corporate cloud or data center. Sure, the model is simple: simply deploy resources in the public cloud and leverage them as expandable compute from the private cloud/data center. But to do that requires a way to leverage them. You need to connect them together in such a way as to make those externally deployed resources appear to be part of the data center.
That’s where cloud bridges come in handy. Cloud bridges, as we’ve previously defined, integrate environments at the network layer – extending the operational domain into remote environments such as public cloud. Bridges are the «connective tissue» that is the basis for a hybrid cloud.