The hybrid cloud model continues to win over IT professionals and analysts in enterprise. Yes, the cloud is cheap and convenient, but there is something to be said for keeping some workloads on premise — data security is one benefit; regulatory compliance is another. So the hybrid model simply offers the best of both worlds, right? Well, there is another less talked-about reason for the ubiquity of hybrid.

David Richards, founder and CEO of WANdisco plc, said the dirty little secret of hybrid cloud is that it’s not a pretty melding, but a strict separation due to the scary pitfalls of data transfer between environments. “You have some workloads running against some data in the cloud and others that run against some data on premise,” he told Peter Burris (@plburris) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during BigDataNYC 2016.

“Now why do they do that? Because they have to. Because they can’t guarantee complete consistency between on-premise and on cloud,” Richards explained.

On-prem to cloud layover

Richards clarified that different data types pose varying degrees of difficulty in moving between on-prem and cloud. “If it’s batch, if it’s static, if it’s archival data — easy problem to solve. There’s a million and one replication products — you can use rsync [utility] if you really wanted to do that,” he said. “But active transnational data, data that changes, data that moves at petabyte scale — hard problem,” he said, adding that the time it takes to guarantee accuracy would be prohibitive in some cases.

“We’ve got a customer that’s trying to look at cardiographs in and out of cloud. Would you really feel comfortable in your cardiograph eventually getting into the cloud and being analyzed?” he asked.

Plastic surgery

“Our definition of hybrid cloud is exactly the same data —  if you want — between on-premise and cloud,” he said, adding that he likes the term “plastic,” because it denotes complete malleability, not just mobility.

Richards said that WANdisco is bringing this ability to re-purpose applications for either environment with the exact same data to customers with an OEM or indirect model through partnerships with the likes of Amazon and IBM.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of BigDataNYC 2016.

Photo SiliconANGLE