The Quick Guide to Hybrid Cloud Orchestration

April 20, 2025 7:32 pm |

min

Leveraging the cloud is second nature for many modern businesses, and it is only natural to expand into larger or more numerous clouds as operations grow. The drawback of upscaling in the cloud, particularly in the hybrid cloud, is that it requires a correlating number of man-hours to manage all the processes running in those clouds.

Automation can provide the freedom that IT teams need. However, keeping many automated processes in check requires a large-scale hybrid cloud orchestration solution.

Key Takeaways:

Orchestration in the hybrid cloud connects automated tasks across clouds under a single framework that manages them all.
There are multiple models for cloud orchestration, with each one applicable to different levels of cloud architecture.
Orchestration and cloud automation go hand in hand to enable self-service and application lifecycle management.

What Is Hybrid Cloud Orchestration?

Cloud orchestration is a framework for automating tasks pertaining to the connection and operation of workloads across private and public clouds in a hybrid deployment. There are numerous processes that enable the business functionality of a hybrid cloud, and many of them are simple or redundant enough to warrant automating. It only makes sense to implement hybrid cloud orchestration to facilitate that automation.

Image to represent Elements of a hybrid cloud

This orchestration stems from automation but goes beyond and coordinates multiple tasks under one umbrella of logic. The ideal orchestration strategy works by accounting for scalability, failover and failback scenarios, and dependency management to ensure that the hybrid cloud can function at its maximum potential with minimum human interaction.

Organizations can leverage orchestration in the hybrid cloud for tasks like initiating workloads, provisioning storage resources, and deploying virtual machines. The benefits of using orchestration in such a way are almost immediately apparent through increased speed of service and lowered costs overall.

Research from MarketsandMarkets shows that the hybrid cloud market is projected to reach a value of USD $97.6 billion by the end of 2023. Not only is adoption of hybrid cloud architecture growing at a breakneck pace but so too is automation in the cloud. The need for hybrid cloud orchestration can only expand as a result.

Hybrid Cloud Orchestration Models

Keeping in mind that one of the main purposes of cloud orchestration is the deployment of virtual machines, specifically virtual servers, it makes sense that different orchestration models are designed based on where those VMs will exist. Determining which model is appropriate based on the applications in question is a major step toward properly implementing orchestration in the hybrid cloud.

In a hybrid cloud that consists of at least one private cloud and multiple public clouds, it is appropriate to adopt a multicloud model for orchestration. Even when multiple applications are running in multiple different clouds, the hybrid cloud orchestration process can connect them as part of one consistent system that is highly visible and easy to control.

The infrastructure-as-a-service model enables cloud orchestration in an environment in which a third-party cloud provider offers infrastructure elements for networking, storage, and servers. This model can also go hand in hand with a multicloud setup, as the IaaS provider can even facilitate the orchestration of operations between clouds with proprietary virtualization and orchestration solutions.

The platform-as-a-service model makes cloud orchestration possible through operating systems and other platforms that sit between the infrastructure and the software where workloads take place.

Note that these different models are not mutually exclusive and can all coexist to empower varied types of hybrid cloud orchestration as the situation demands.

Hybrid Cloud Orchestration and Cloud Automation

Orchestration, at its core, involves code that carries out a wide set of laborious processes automatically. Orchestration in the hybrid cloud can work in tandem with flexible and scalable cloud automation to accomplish numerous tasks across private and public clouds.

Automation in the cloud enables self-service provisioning and automatic application lifecycle management. With an orchestration solution functioning further behind the scenes, it becomes possible for these processes to take place on larger and larger scales without ever forfeiting automation or reliability.

This in turn makes it possible to automate the provisioning of hybrid cloud architectures and distributed applications across different cloud environments, all from a single control plane.

Nutanix consulting services help ensure efficient delivery and implementation of hybrid cloud orchestration and cloud automation in tandem. Organizations operating on Nutanix infrastructure can leverage the complementary capabilities of these two technologies to automate VM-centric workflows, fill out an on-demand self-service catalog, and gain full monitoring and management capacity.

Operate on a Platform Built for Hybrid Cloud Orchestration

Orchestration in the hybrid cloud exists on a foundation of automation and service-based operating models. The actual implementation of these models and the aforementioned automation requires having a platform that provides orchestration as a feature.

The Nutanix Cloud Manager is a solution that provides orchestration across clouds while guaranteeing visibility and cost control. It brings a level of intelligent operations, self-service, and governance that modern IT decision-makers expect from a cloud platform.

Hybrid cloud orchestration ultimately delivers freedom to IT teams whose time is better spent innovating rather than performing laborious, monotonous tasks. The Nutanix Cloud Platform facilitates that freedom through NCM and a variety of other solutions that address a wide range of hybrid cloud scenarios.

Learn more about how to redefine cloud workloads and how to build your own private cloud for a hybrid cloud deployment.

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