Let’s start with a paradox – The potential of the cloud is limitless BUT the cloud is currently being limited.

What the public cloud providers have built is a marvel of modern technology. Millions of coordinated systems running across dozens of regions not only provides the massive amounts of computing and storage needed to power pretty much every application, but it also provides a vast array of advanced services at a lower cost than any organization could achieve with homegrown solutions.

The paradox is that many enterprise applications hosted in public clouds must integrate with edge locations (data centers, manufacturing floors, hospitals, retail, etc) that hold the data these apps require to function. But managing these edge locations requires an entirely different set of tools than the cloud supports. Bringing everything together becomes a limiting factor in the adoption of cloud-hosted applications. This problem is found most commonly in industries where SaaS applications are enabling a digital transformation.

Because of this, hybrid cloud infrastructure that mixes both cloud and data center resources is now a challenge for those SaaS providers who are dependent on customer-controlled data. While the problem is fairly common, integrating and optimizing these infrastructures is still more of an art than a science for many software providers. 

Mastering these architectures requires a curated mix of technology to leverage the cloud where needed, while protecting data and running workloads that are running outside the cloud. Applications that are sensitive to latency, security and the size of on-premise data stores are particularly prone to concerns about where application components live, how they are connected, and how to manage the coordination between environments.

This is where Trustgrid enters the picture. Trustgrid has turned that art INTO science by managing these architectures through a platform-based approach that treats all environments (cloud, data center, or branch office) equally and reduces the mix of tools, expertise, and processes down to two solutions – a public cloud provider and Trustgrid.

The Trustgrid Approach

Solving these problems requires experience across multiple disciplines. The Trustgrid platform was built as a multidisciplinary solution to elegantly address these complexities.

The platform functions as a connectivity solution that combines site-to-site networking capabilities along with the ability to run Docker containers on the network, at the edge. Together these features enable applications to function as if all components are in the cloud even when some components may live at the edge. Connectivity is handled over encrypted, low latency networking and can be used in multi-tenant use cases to provide a one-to-many network between the SaaS application and each of its unique customers.

Additionally, deployed containers running at the network’s edge can be managed and supported via the platform’s Zero Trust remote access features. This gives an organization the ability to deploy and manage their entire hybrid cloud infrastructure, from cloud to customer environments, through a single pane of glass.

Each of these disciplines are brought together in a way that eliminates the need for highly specialized networking experts to build and maintain this new hybrid cloud data fabric.

Using the networking elements of the platform to stitch together cloud and on-premise end-points creates a connective tissue between SaaS applications and remote data sources that was previously left to a variety of point solutions building siloed networks with lots of manual labor. Using the containerized application platform provides the ability to take those endpoints and build distributed application architectures that eliminate the need to have all data backhauled between locations.

By creating an environment-agnostic layer of connectivity with automated management capabilities, applications are able to exchange data reliably and manage remote application components freely without worrying about where they are located or how the required transit is occurring.

In summary, Trustgrid enables data and applications to remain where they make the most sense (cloud, data center, branch office, etc). SaaS applications can be built and sold knowing that where a customer’s data lives doesn’t matter. Administrative controls are applied consistently from a central authority and engineering or DevOps teams are given the freedom to deploy new connections, push software updates, and monitor systems as needed without relying on internally managed infrastructure.

With Trustgrid, cloud SaaS applications are free to serve every industry, every legacy environment, and finally pass over its final speed bump on the road to IT dominance.

Interested in learning more? Watch our on-demand webinar, “Removing the limitations of cloud applications in Fintech”