# Hybrid and multi-cloud

> Running systems across your own servers and the cloud, or across several cloud providers.

- Level: Intermediate
- Topics: Cloud
- URL: https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/hybrid-and-multi-cloud/
- In Spanish: [Nube híbrida y multicloud](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/es/hybrid-and-multi-cloud/)

A **hybrid cloud** mixes a company's own servers, in its offices or a rented data center (called **on-premises** or on-prem), with a public cloud like AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, connected so they work as one system. A bank might keep its core accounts on its own hardware for regulatory reasons while running its mobile app and analytics in the cloud. A factory might process sensor data locally and send summaries to the cloud.

**Multi-cloud** means using more than one public cloud provider. Sometimes it is deliberate: one provider's AI services, another's data warehouse, or a requirement not to depend on a single vendor. Very often it is just history: one team chose AWS, an acquired company runs on Azure, and marketing uses tools hosted on Google Cloud. Hybrid and multi-cloud are different ideas, and many companies are both.

The benefits are flexibility, keeping data where rules require it, and less dependence on one vendor. The costs are real: each provider has its own services, security model, billing and skills, and moving data between them takes time and can carry fees for data leaving a provider. Tools like Kubernetes and infrastructure as code help by describing systems in a way that works in more than one place, but they do not make the differences disappear.

## An analogy

Hybrid is keeping your own car while also using taxis for some trips. Multi-cloud is having accounts with two taxi companies. Both give you options, and both mean more apps, more bills and more rules to remember.

## Keep in mind

- Hybrid: your own servers (on-premises) plus a public cloud, working together.
- Multi-cloud: two or more public cloud providers at the same time.
- Reasons include regulation, latency, best-of-breed services and avoiding lock-in.
- Costs: more complexity, more skills to keep, and fees to move data out.

## Go deeper

- [What is hybrid cloud? (AWS)](https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/hybrid-cloud/)
- [What is multicloud? (Google Cloud)](https://cloud.google.com/learn/what-is-multicloud)
- [Multicloud on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicloud)

## Related terms

- [Server](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/server/): A computer whose job is to answer requests from other computers, all day, every day.
- [Data center](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/data-center/): A building full of servers where the internet, the cloud and AI actually run.
- [Cloud computing](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/cloud-computing/): Renting computers over the internet instead of buying your own.
- [Microsoft](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/microsoft/): The company of Windows and Office, now just as much a cloud company with Azure.
- [Google Cloud](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/google-cloud/): Google's cloud business: computing, storage, data and AI services rented by the hour.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/artificial-intelligence/): Getting computers to do things that, until recently, only people could do.
- [Data warehouse](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/data-warehouse/): A database built for analysis: years of history, from many sources, in one place.
- [Kubernetes](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/kubernetes/): The system that runs and babysits containers across many machines.