Hybrid Cloud For Dummies

Looking at the Requirements for Cloud Integration

Many companies initially underestimate the challenges of integrating data across hybrid computing environments. (For more details on data integration you will want to refer to Chapter 11.) Most of the integration issues between public and private clouds will focus on SaaS applications. This may be a new experience for many IT organizations that are used to controlling the data sources they are integrating. They assume they already have the tools and expertise required to manage the integration process because of their prior experiences with integration in the data center. Traditionally, most organizations used a consistent process for moving data within a computing environment. This approach, known as Extraction, Transform, Load (ETL), is most appropriate for transferring and processing large volumes of data in fast, high-throughput transactional environments within an enterprise data center. However, ETL is inadequate for integrating across multiple delivery platforms of the cloud.

A major complexity with trying to make ETL work in a hybrid environment is the varied structure of the data. The IT staff typically doesn’t have the same level of insight into the data elements, data structures, data configurations, and database in SaaS platforms as compared to the applications managed and controlled in the data center. Therefore, it ...