![]() The control plane can be on site, in the cloud or wherever you choose to put it. I am excited by the release of ownCloud 8.2, and the new encryption capabilities that we support now make it practical to deliver hybrid cloud EFSS from a control plane installed and managed by you. This is definitely hybrid cloud EFSS, it is just delivered so that you can tailor to you – THAT is choice. And, of course, you can mix and match storage in the cloud with storage on site as appropriate, using object stores, block storage or whatever you choose. Existing infrastructure can be used, and existing procedures and staff can be used. Existing security mechanisms can be leveraged, like intrusion detection, DLP and more. ![]() Authentication is simpler leveraging AD, LDAP, SAML or something similar. No new infrastructure or hardware is needed, just a bunch of virtual machines. If, on the other hand, you have your control plane on site – a lot of this is just plain easier. Then we talk about how you integrate with existing infrastructure and investments and quite a bit more, and one might come to the conclusion that you really don’t have a lot of choice in any of this, it is all vendor driven. If it is hosted, who is taking care of all of this? Your vendor, you, or a mix of the two – leveraging whose processes? Then one has to ask who has the control over the encryption keys and ultimately the files. Then you have integrated logging, intrusion detection, monitoring, and backup. Or you need to invest in just the storage they can access on site, which is usually a limited range of option. Ok, you can invest in new security hardware to make it work, but you need to make that investment. This can lead to interesting new security challenges. First is authentication and access via an appliance, connector, or on site gateway. If your control plane is in the cloud accessing data on site, this has all sorts of challenges. To those that think this, I respectfully disagree – it matters a lot in the choices you can make to support your requirements. This is a semantic difference, not really a big deal. One might then ask the question who cares. Why is the only way to have a hybrid EFSS to have the control plane hosted in a vendor cloud? What about vendors where the control plane is on site, and storage is mixed on site or in the cloud? Is this not also hybrid cloud? Or if you decide to host your own control plane in a non-vendor cloud, is this not also hybrid? I posit that they both are, and that the true definition of hybrid cloud EFSS is simply the combination of public, private or on site cloud resources working together to provide Enterprise File Sync and Share. Why is it my favorite? Primarily because they missed the mark with this definition. If you asked me to define hybrid, my favorite definition is probably Gartner’s, as they are usually pretty accurate, do a lot of research and have a wide view of the market: You can mix and match what you need for your specific use case. Overall though, hybrid generally means choice. Hybrid cloud means a lot of things to a lot of people, particularly when it relates to Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS).
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