Cloud bursting is a dynamic application deployment model that allows organizations to temporarily extend on-premises infrastructure to public cloud environments when demand exceeds local capacity.
This hybrid cloud configuration approach enables businesses to maintain cost-effective private infrastructure for normal operations while using the scalability of public cloud resources during peak periods.
Cloud Bursting Definition
Cloud bursting is a cloud configuration method that allows applications to run in a private cloud or data center and “burst” into a public cloud when computing demand spikes. Cloud bursting provides a way for organizations to handle sudden increases in workload without having to maintain excess capacity in their own infrastructure.
How Does Cloud Bursting Work?
The process of cloud bursting typically involves the following steps.
- Monitoring: The system continuously monitors resource utilization and workload demands.
- Threshold detection: The cloud bursting mechanism is triggered when predefined thresholds are reached, indicating that local resources are nearing capacity.
- Workload migration: Excess workload is automatically transferred to the public cloud environment.
- Load balancing: The cloud bursting model distributes traffic between on-premises and cloud resources to ensure optimal performance.
- Scaling down: As demand decreases, the model moves workloads back to the private infrastructure and public cloud resources are de-provisioned.
Why Is Cloud Bursting Important?
Cloud bursting allows organizations to do the following.
Optimize Resource Utilization
By using public cloud resources only when needed, companies can avoid overprovisioning their own infrastructure.
Maintain Performance
Applications can handle sudden spikes in demand without experiencing downtime or degraded performance.
Control Costs
Organizations pay for additional resources only when they are actually used, rather than purchasing and maintaining excess capacity at all times.
When to Use Cloud Bursting
Here are some scenarios when cloud bursting is particularly useful.
- Seasonal demand: Retail businesses experiencing holiday shopping surges.
- Marketing campaigns: Companies launching promotional activities that drive temporary traffic increases.
- Batch processing: Organizations running periodic, resource-intensive computations.
- Development and testing: Software teams requiring additional resources for short-term testing or development projects.
Benefits of Cloud Bursting
The key advantages of cloud bursting include the following.
Cost Savings
Organizations can maintain a smaller, more cost-effective on-premises infrastructure while still handling peak loads.
Scalability
Businesses can rapidly scale resources up or down based on demand.
Improved Performance
Applications are less likely to experience latency or failure during demand surges, even during unexpected traffic spikes.
Business Continuity
Cloud bursting provides an additional layer of redundancy, enhancing disaster recovery capabilities.
Challenges of Cloud Bursting
Despite its benefits, cloud bursting also presents some challenges.
Data Synchronization
Ensuring data consistency between on-premises and cloud environments can be complex.
Application Compatibility
Not all applications are designed to work seamlessly across different environments.
Security and Compliance
Transferring data between environments introduces risk vectors, including potential data leakage and increased attack surface.
Network Latency
The physical distance between on-premises and cloud resources can introduce performance issues.
Cost Management
While cloud bursting can save money, it requires careful planning and monitoring to manage expenses.
Types of Cloud Bursting
There are several approaches to implementing cloud bursting.
Manual Bursting
Information technology staff manually provision and deprovision cloud resources as needed. This approach makes sense for rare large events or experimenting with cloud bursting because it requires constant monitoring and intervention.
Automated Bursting
Systems automatically trigger cloud bursting based on predefined policies and thresholds that are either resource or cost related (for example, cheap cloud compute becomes available). This method is more efficient but requires careful configuration and testing.
Distributed Load Balancing
A flavor of automated bursting for web traffic where workloads are continuously distributed across both on-premises and cloud resources to manage cost and performance.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is cloud bursting?
Cloud bursting is a cloud configuration method that lets applications run on private infrastructure and temporarily use public cloud resources during demand spikes. It monitors resource usage and, when thresholds are met, automatically shifts excess workloads to the public cloud, then scales back when demand decreases.
What’s the difference between cloud bursting and cloud bridging?
Cloud bursting is a temporary expansion of computing resources to a public cloud when demand exceeds on-premises capacity, typically for specific workloads or applications.
Cloud bridging is a more permanent connection between private and public cloud environments, allowing for continuous data and application integration across both platforms.
What’s a use case of cloud bursting?
A common use case for cloud bursting is in e-commerce, where online retailers experience significant spikes in traffic during major sales events like Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Cloud bursting allows these businesses to maintain normal operations on their private infrastructure while automatically scaling to handle the surge in customer activity during peak periods, ensuring website responsiveness and preventing lost sales due to downtime.
