The mandate to leverage data and AI for operational gain is forcing businesses to reckon with growing complexity in their IT infrastructure. As a result, leaders are now asking: What is hybrid cloud, and what role will it play in our company’s future?
Increasingly, companies rely on a mix of public and private cloud infrastructure services, as well as systems they own and operate themselves. Done right, this hybrid architecture lets organizations connect on-premises solutions that still support mission-critical workflows to the growing number of cloud-based systems, while also enabling quicker and more seamless access to AI, edge computing, and other frontier technology — all while maintaining strong, consistent security across the entire IT landscape.
But many struggle to achieve these benefits. For 52% of businesses, hybrid cloud is a top infrastructure management challenge, according to the 2025 Cloud Complexity Survey. Often, cloud and on-premises systems aren't connected. They’re typically managed in silos, creating gaps that slow down developers, increase risk, and lead to unexpected costs. Security and infrastructure specialists don’t communicate as much as they should. And instead of AI-driven automation, platform teams and developers continue to do much of their work manually.
Without a unified lifecycle approach to hybrid cloud management, enterprises could find themselves falling short in their data and AI priorities in 2026. However, when infrastructure is managed through one control plane as a single architecture, infrastructure becomes a catalyst for faster, more impactful innovation.
In this post, we’ll outline what’s needed for an effective hybrid cloud strategy, and explain how a unified lifecycle approach can accelerate, strengthen, and optimize infrastructure management.
»Building the right hybrid cloud
The hybrid model is quickly becoming a common architecture choice. In fact, by 2027, an estimated 90% of organizations will use a hybrid cloud, according to Gartner. Why is it becoming popular?
»Why is a hybrid cloud important?
On-premises systems often hold some of a company’s most valuable data, and play a pivotal role in core workflows — particularly for regulated industries that must protect sensitive and confidential information. Some companies will find it safer or less expensive to keep some data managed in house and on-prem. But that data will also become key context for AI in the coming months and years. Now, as more enterprises aim to use AI to automate processes and improve deduction-making, among other outcomes, it’s imperative that businesses minimize gaps between their on-prem and cloud technology.
»Hybrid cloud vs. multi-cloud
Hybrid cloud is defined as any infrastructure that uses both cloud (regardless of whether it’s public and/or private) and on-premises dedicated datacenters. Multi-cloud is defined as any infrastructure that uses more than one cloud vendor or system (regardless of whether it’s public and/or private, self-built, or from a third-party). Organizations can have both hybrid cloud and multi-cloud infrastructure simultaneously, which is not uncommon.
The hybrid cloud management challenge is similar to the multi-cloud management challenge. Siloed teams and workflows cause massive levels of friction when new software innovations need to harness multiple environments, and companies need to secure and manage all those environments efficiently.
»Why hybrid cloud requires a unified lifecycle approach to infrastructure
Organizations with hybrid cloud environments understand how challenging this infrastructure can be. Adrian Cockcroft, who once led the open source program at Netflix, compared hybrid cloud management to one rider riding two horses.
Teams that want to start addressing runaway infrastructure costs and growing inefficiency need to focus on that “one rider” as the key leverage point for fixing their problems. To do that, organizations need to build a unified platform as a foundation that will allow software teams to “ride multiple horses” without noticing a difference in speed or process friction.
A unified lifecycle approach to security and infrastructure management that eliminates barriers across hybrid infrastructure requires several components, including:
- An infrastructure as code approach to infrastructure and policy to deliver consistency across environments
- Self-service provisioning to remove complexity for developers
- Identity-based access, with centralized secrets management to shift the business from long-lived to short-lived credentials, API keys, and other sensitive secrets
»Doing hybrid cloud right
Hybrid cloud complexity is more than an IT problem; it can drag down the whole business.
Without a unified view across the entire infrastructure landscape, it’s harder and more time-consuming for platform teams to spot vulnerabilities or troubleshoot issues, leading to higher costs and worse performance. Similarly, without standardized policies and processes, developers take an ad hoc approach to building software that leads to an exploding number of security gaps and reliability issues.
A unified lifecycle approach to hybrid cloud management transforms how platform teams operate to:
- Accelerate innovation - by removing manual, time-consuming aspects of infrastructure management and provisioning.
- Strengthen security - with an identity-based zero trust operating model, spanning an organization’s human and non-human entities.
- Optimize spend - with real-time visibility and cost controls to proactively detect issues before they lead to larger monthly bills.
»Next steps
To learn more about how we can help your company navigate the complexities of hybrid infrastructure for more secure, automated operations, check out our new Do Cloud Right, Explained video series and drop us a line to talk about your unique IT challenges.
