Hybrid Data Solutions: Balancing Cloud and On-Premises Needs

These days, managing data isn’t as simple as picking one solution and sticking with it. Businesses juggle on-prem infrastructure and cloud storage to keep up with their needs. The cloud offers scalability and easy access, while on-prem systems provide control and security. The challenge is in finding the right balance without sacrificing performance, cost, or compliance.

That’s where hybrid data solutions really show their worth. With technologies like Starburst and Dell’s data lakehouse, businesses can optimize their data strategy without being locked into a single environment. Today, we’ll explore how hybrid setups boost flexibility, improve accessibility and drive better performance.

One big challenge organizations face is connecting all their different data sources, whether they're stored in the cloud or on-site.Traditionally, businesses have been forced to either migrate all data to a centralized location or maintain siloed systems, both of which come with their respective trade-offs.

Starburst has entirely changed the equation. By engineering a distributed query engine, Starburst allows organizations to access data where it resides — whether in on-premises storage, private clouds or public cloud services like Azure and Google Cloud. This approach eliminates the need for excessive data movement, reducing duplication and minimizing time.

With a hybrid model powered by Starburst, businesses can:

• Query Data in Place — No need for costly and time-consuming ETL processes.
• Enhance Security and Compliance – Keep sensitive data on-prem while leveraging the cloud for scalability.

Optimize Costs – Use on-prem infrastructure for predictable workloads and scale with cloud services as needed.

A prime example of an efficient hybrid approach is Dell’s deployment of its data lakehouse powered by Starburst. Traditionally, data lakes provide centralized storage for large-scale data, while data warehouses offer structured query capabilities. A data lakehouse merges the best of both worlds — offering the scalability of a lake with the performance and structure of a warehouse, but in a more cost-effective and high-performing manner.

Dell’s approach optimizes on-prem infrastructure while leveraging cloud-native capabilities, ensuring businesses can manage data effectively without unnecessary costs. 

Here’s how it works:

• Seamless Data Accessibility: Users can run analytics on both structured and unstructured data in place, avoiding expensive migrations.
• Optimized Performance: Starburst’s query engine accelerates data retrieval, reducing latency and boosting efficiency.
• Scalable Operations: Businesses can dynamically adjust storage and compute resources based on real-time demand, which improves cost management.

By adopting this model, organizations can maximize efficiency without overcommitting to costly infrastructure — ensuring a balanced, high-performance hybrid data strategy.

Businesses are embracing this model for several reasons. Data sovereignty is a critical factor, as some industries require data to remain within specific geographical regions or on-prem for regulatory, compliance reasons. A hybrid setup ensures compliance while still benefiting from cloud scalability. 

Resilience and redundancy also play a crucial role. By distributing data across multiple environments, businesses can improve disaster recovery strategies and mitigate risks associated with a single point of failure. The ability to future-proof these investments also serves as a major positive for organizations making a switch. Rather than being locked into a single cloud provider or infrastructure, hybrid solutions provide the flexibility to adapt as your business needs evolve.

Before jumping into a hybrid data strategy, organizations should assess their needs with a few key questions. 

• Where is our data currently stored, and what are our storage priorities? 
• What workloads and queries are best suited for on-prem versus cloud environments? 
• How can we benefit from integrating a solution like Starburst?

With technologies like Starburst and Dell’s data lakehouse model, businesses can operate in a unified, high-performance environment that maximizes flexibility and scalability. As data ecosystems continue to evolve, companies that embrace hybrid data solutions will position themselves ahead of the curve — equipped with the agility to respond to business demands while keeping control over their most valuable asset: data.