The Importance of Resilient Cloud Systems: Insights from CloudFest 2023 and the Power of the Hybrid Cloud

CloudFest is known worldwide as one of the premier events in the field of Internet infrastructure. Experts from the cloud and hosting industry gather from all over the world, to network and discover the latest trends and developments in cloud and hosting services. CloudFest offers presentations, workshops and panel discussions on a wide range of topics, including cloud computing, security, data centres, networking, software and more. For Harborn, CloudFest is an interesting event to attend, particularly because they completely distance themselves from major cloud vendors such as AWS and Azure. This allows for an unbiased perspective of the industry. That’s why Laurence and Guus attended this year's event on behalf of Harborn, to explore the latest trends and insights on cloud, hosting and infrastructure.

This year's theme was "The Resilient Cloud”. The Resilient Cloud refers to building strong and flexible cloud systems that can quickly recover from outages. This includes strategies like redundancy, where critical components are duplicated to ensure continuous operation. Automated monitoring and proactive alerting systems ensure early detection and quick resolution of problems. Scalability and elasticity allow the system to adapt to demand and avoid overloads. Backup and recovery mechanisms ensure data security and availability, even in the event of disasters. The resilient cloud improves business continuity, minimises downtime and provides reliable cloud services.

At Harborn, we have been working on the resilience of our hosting environment and underlying infrastructure for years. The beauty of an event like CloudFest is that it provides us with new insights through the various presentations and conversations. The most interesting topic for us during Cloudfest was the hybrid cloud, which I would like to delve into further.

A hybrid cloud environment is a way of building IT systems using different cloud platforms and/or local (on-premises) environments. It’s similar to having multiple types of storage spaces that work together to meet different needs. So, in the world of IT, as an organisation you can use different types of cloud platforms and local environments to manage your data and applications. This allows you to take advantage of the benefits of each environment based on their specific requirements.

The hybrid cloud offers advantages such as flexibility, scalability and resilience. An important aspect of the hybrid cloud strategy is the secure storage of critical data in different environments. This ensures that even in the event of a cloud provider outage, the data is not lost, and we can ensure business continuity.

Imagine you have important documents that you don't want to lose. Instead of storing them in one place, make multiple copies and keep them in different locations. That way, even if something happens to one copy, you still have access to the other copies, keeping your documents safe. At Harborn, we apply a similar principle to our data storage. We implement redundant and distributed systems where critical data is stored on multiple environments. This means that if an outage occurs at one of the hosting providers, we can still access the data stored in other environments. We are also working on setting up a streamlined data migration pipeline. This will allow us to move data easily and securely between different environments, enabling us to respond quickly to outages and ensure that the required data remains available for both our internal processes and customers.

CloudFest has inspired and encouraged us to continue looking ahead and exploring innovative cloud solutions. That’s why CloudFest will definitely remain on our radar for next year. We don't want to miss the opportunity to be re-immersed in the world of cloud, to learn from other experts and gain new insights.