Hybrid Cloud Security: Balancing Performance, Cost, and Compliance in Multi-Cloud Deployments

TL;DR

This paper explores how organizations can effectively balance security, performance, and cost in hybrid cloud environments, proposing a framework and analyzing challenges through case studies of AWS and Azure integrations.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid cloud security and cost optimization framework based on zero trust architecture and policies, validated through real-world case studies.

Findings

Validated security and performance solutions in AWS and Azure hybrid clouds

Identified key challenges in resource allocation and pricing complexity

Proposed a comprehensive framework for hybrid cloud security and cost management

Abstract

The pervasive use of hybrid cloud computing models has changed enterprise as well as Information Technology services infrastructure by giving businesses simple and cost-effective options of combining on-premise IT equipment with public cloud services. hybrid cloud solutions deploy multifaceted models of security, performance optimization, and cost efficiency, conventionally fragmented in the cloud computing milieu. This paper examines how organizations manage these parameters in hybrid cloud ecosystems while providing solutions to the challenges they face in operationalizing hybrid cloud adoptions. The study captures the challenges of achieving a balance in resource distribution between on-premise and cloud resources (herein referred to as the "resource allocation challenge"), the complexity of pricing models from cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud (herein called the 'pricing complexity problem'), and the urgency for strong security infrastructure to safeguard sensitive information (known as 'the information security problem'). This study demonstrates the security and performance management solutions proposed were validated in a detailed case study of adoption of AWS and Azure based hybrid cloud and provides useful guidance. Also, a hybrid cloud security and cost optimization framework based on zero trust architecture, encryption, hybrid cloud policies, and others, is proposed. The conclusion includes recommendations for research on automation of hybrid cloud service management, integration of multi-clouds, and the ever-present question of data privacy, stressing how those matters affect contemporary enterprises.