Hybrid Cloud Solutions

Fermorite’s Cloud Services are designed to provide easy, scalable access to applications, resources and services and most importantly they are fully managed by us. Through our experience in Cloud Services, Fermorite provides innovated and market targeted cloud services covering the full spectrum of the Cloud ecosystem. Our implementations cover both green field deployments in hybrid topologies, as well as migrations of workloads from existing on-premise infrastructure to public or hybrid clouds.

Hybrid Cloud Options

A public cloud is built, managed and maintained by a large technology vendor that makes computing, storage and software available on a rental basis. The leading public cloud vendors have datacenters all over the world with literally millions of servers available for use. Customers (enterprises) can either take advantage of applications that already exist in the cloud or they can upload their own proprietary applications and, as we shall see, there are a number of ways in which applications can physically exist in the cloud but appear to be private to the enterprise corporate network.

Public Cloud

The term private cloud is to a large extent misinterpreted. According to some, it is considered the same as a traditional on-premises datacenter. In most cases however this is not accurate. In the traditional on-premises model, IT departments purchase hardware as applications need them. Also, a mix of hardware and software is traditionally maintained, ranging from legacy mainframe systems to modern servers and workstations, with various operating systems, databases and various application and system software. In most cases this effectively prevents the application of the concept of on-demand computing, which is at the heart of the cloud.

Private Cloud

In a true private cloud systems are hosted in an on-premises datacenter with large numbers of commodity hardware running identical system software. The allocated hardware capacity of these systems to applications can rapidly expand or contract depending on the real time application workload demand. Additionally, a true private cloud implements technology stacks which are consistent with public clouds. Therefore a real private cloud should be seen as an extension to public clouds and vice versa.

Hybrid cloud

Hybrid cloud is combinations of private and public clouds. In reality, service providers and companies often need to utilize the best of both worlds, i.e. utilize public cloud elasticity, emerging state of the art technologies and on-demand pay-as-you-go billing models while, at the same time, maintaining part of the applications and data on-premise or in a private cloud, to maintain application compatibility as well as security and privacy compliance. In order to make hybrid clouds a reality, a networking mechanism needs to be introduced by the business, which would interconnect on-premises infrastructure to public cloud infrastructure. To securely connect private and public clouds a Virtual Private Network (VPN) can be utilized, which makes cloud applications appear to be on the same internal network as the enterprise. VPNs can be set up on a per-application basis or for the entire corporate infrastructure.

Alternatively a dedicated line offered by telecom providers can be utilized which can interconnect the corporate datacenter or a service provider private cloud with various public clouds. This solution is recommended when it is desired to keep all traffic off of the public Internet or when substantially higher bandwidth is required. Hybrid cloud configurations do not only refer to infrastructure interconnections of private and public clouds but also to hybrid configurations of various applications which can function natively both on-premise and on public clouds. A bold example of this is Microsoft Office 365 which allows for a multitude of hybrid configurations, combining on-premise Exchange Server, Sharepoint Server and Skype for Business Server alongside Office 365 and Microsoft 365 services running on Azure. 

Multi-cloud

Fermorite designs and implements bespoke cloud solutions which aspire to provide balance between efficiency and cost effectiveness. In this mindset, Fermorite utilizes services stemming from any public cloud vendor, as long as each service is considered as the best fit for each requirement. Fermorite primarily utilizes Microsoft Cloud (Azure), Citrix Workspace Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), VMWare Cloud, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and the OpenStack Cloud as the trusted cloud platforms for its cloud solutions.

Infrastructure As A Service (IAAS) solutions

With the IaaS model, customers are paying only for the usage of server hardware and the hypervisor which hosts virtual machines (VM). Each VM comprises an operating system, associated system software and application software. Virtual machines operate in the same way on the cloud as they would function on-premises. Depending on the customer requirements, multiple virtual machines can be hosted by the same hypervisor in the same cloud server. Fermorite provides IaaS hybrid cloud solutions, which are tailored to the specific needs of the customer. The sections marked in blue in the diagram below are managed by the customer, the white sections are managed by Fermorite or the public cloud service provider in which Fermorite deploys services for the customer.

A special case of PaaS is the usage of containers. More and more businesses nowadays actively employ a containerized approach to application development, in order to harness the native cloud benefits of containers, in terms of performance, stability, compatibility and application development agility. In the case of containers, there are also isolation and security guarantees which prevent applications from interfering which each other. Because starting a containerized application typically does not involve loading and initializing an entire VM with an operating system, container startup can be very fast, so scale-up and scale-down can be very performant. The sections marked in blue in the diagram below are managed by the customer, the white sections are managed by Fermorite or the public cloud service provider in which Fermorite deploys services for the customer.

Desktop As A Service (DAAS)

Fermorite has significant expertise in the Desktop As A Service area. We specialize in the full Citrix DaaS portfolio as well as in Microsoft RDS and Windows Virtual Desktop solutions.

Citrix DaaS solutions provide a wide range of options for application and desktop virtualization. Based on the customer requirements and priorities, Fermorite designs and deploys DaaS solutions utilizing the appropriate Citrix DaaS components. On one end, all components are deployed and managed by Fermorite via the Citrix Workspace Cloud. On the other end of the spectrum lies a full on-premise DaaS implementation, based on the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops infrastructure. In between these two scenarios there are options for hybrid DaaS implementations in which some components are deployed on customer premises and some components on the Citrix Cloud or directly on a supported public cloud, such as Azure or AWS. The following diagram illustrates the Citrix Workspace reference architecture implemented by Fermorite in its DaaS solutions.

Backup As A Service (BAAS) and Disaster Recovery As A Service (DRAAS)

Security threats are becoming complex and security incidents are becoming more frequent in the average corporate IT environment. The rise of ransomware attacks is only a small example and is a common concern for many businesses. Corporations seek efficient ways to implement off-site backups in an attempt to ensure that critical IT resources can be restored in the case of a disaster. Fermorite offers Backup As A Service and Disaster Recovery As A Service solutions which cover a wide range of customer requirements and use cases. Offsite backup types include virtual machines, SQL databases and customer data (file shares). Offsite backups provide the peace of mind that corporate data stays secure and up-to-date in a trusted public cloud physical location and can be made available when needed.

Platform As A Service (PAAS) solutions

With the PaaS model, the cloud provider maintains all system software, removing the burden of upgrades and patches from the customer’s IT department. In a PaaS deployment model all that the enterprise needs to focus on is deploying its application code on the PaaS machines. Examples of PaaS services include, but are not limited to, Azure AD services, Azure SQL Database Managed Instances and Azure DevOps Services. The sections marked in blue in the diagram below are managed by the customer, the white sections are managed by Fermorite or the public cloud service provider in which Fermorite deploys services for the customer.

Software As A Service (SAAS) solutions

With the SaaS model, customers pay for applications from a third party vendor such as Microsoft Office 365 or SAP. This is by far the most cost-effective of all Cloud application options because typically the only work involved for the IT department is provisioning users and data and integrating applications with Single Sign On (SSO). SaaS applications can be integrated with existing on-premise running applications. Fermorite specializes in Office 365 and Microsoft 365 SaaS offerings, including the following:

  • Exchange Online
  • Sharepoint Online
  • Teams Online
  • Security and compliance
  • Azure AD
  • Intune for mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM)

A overall comparison of the various Cloud deployment models applied by Fermorite are shown in the following illustration. The sections marked in blue in the diagram below are managed by the customer or Fermorite while the yellow sections are managed by Fermorite or the public cloud service provider in which Fermorite deploys services for the customer.

Microsoft DaaS solutions provide hybrid deployment options based on the Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) on-premise technology on one end and on the Windows Virtual Desktop Azure-based technology on the other end.

Windows Virtual Desktop is in effect the implementation of RDS technology based on the Azure Cloud, offering new unique features:

  • Ability to set up a multi-session Windows 10 deployment which delivers a full Windows 10 with scalability
  • Ability to virtualize Office 365 ProPlus and optimize it to run in multi-user virtual scenarios
  • Provisioning of Windows 7 virtual desktops with free Extended Security Updates
  • Migration capabilities for existing Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and Windows Server desktops and apps
  • Virtualization of both desktops and apps
  • Management of Windows 10, Windows Server and Windows 7 desktops and apps via a unified management console