3 min read

Not Either-Or, but Hybrid

Majza Avdyli : Jul 2, 2026 3:54:10 PM

360° ICT Axians Digitalization Hybrid Cloud Cloud & Data Center Infrastructures

Why Modern IT Infrastructures Need to Be Flexible

Cloud is no longer a question of whether to adopt it in Switzerland. According to the latest Cloud Business Survey by PwC Switzerland, 100% of surveyed Swiss organizations now use cloud services, up from 77% in 2023. The transition has happened. And that is precisely why a new, more important question emerges: How is the cloud being used - and what infrastructure provides the right foundation for it?

In practice, one thing has become clear: reducing IT infrastructure to a choice between “cloud or on-premises” means asking the wrong question. Modern organizations do not need an either-or decision - they need an infrastructure that adapts to their requirements, not the other way around. Hybrid models are not a compromise between two opposing approaches. They are a strategic response to a reality that is simply too complex for one-size-fits-all answers.

100

of surveyed Swiss organizations use cloud services as of 2025.

In 2023. The transformation is now complete.

How to design your cloud infrastructure to be sovereign, secure, and fully controllable - Axians’ “Sovereign Cloud” practical guide provides concrete guiding principles, decision-making questions, and a proven methodology. Download the guide for free now.

Cloud-first is yesterday’s thinking - what truly matters in practice today

The cloud hype of recent years has promised a lot: lower costs, maximum flexibility, and faster innovation. And indeed, the public cloud has delivered much of this - for certain workloads and under specific conditions. However, the cloud-first approach, long seen as the default answer, has had its day.

Because anyone who truly understands their IT landscape knows: not every workload belongs in the public cloud. And not every requirement can be met with a single model. The data underscores this: 75% of Swiss organizations already operate multi-cloud environments to strengthen control, resilience, and regulatory trust (pwc).

Different workloads, different requirements

Anyone designing IT infrastructure today must consider four dimensions of requirements at the same time. These determine where each workload belongs:

Compliance & Data Sovereignty Latency

Regulatory requirements, data protection obligations, and industry-specific regulations define where data can be processed and stored. In Switzerland in particular, data residency and auditability are key decision-making criteria.

Performance & Latency

Applications with high real-time or latency requirements often benefit from local infrastructure - regardless of how powerful global cloud platforms may be.

Dependencies & Integrations

Historically grown IT landscapes, legacy applications, and existing system integrations cannot always be easily migrated to the public cloud. Hybrid models provide the necessary bridge - without breaking with existing systems.

Cost & Economics

The public cloud is not automatically cheaper. On average, companies waste around 32% of their cloud spending on unused or poorly sized resources (info.flexera.com). For stable, predictable workloads, on-premises or private cloud environments can be significantly more cost-efficient.

These four dimensions make one thing clear: there is no universally “right” infrastructure. There is only the right infrastructure for a given workload, a given set of requirements, and a given context. That is exactly what makes a clear placement strategy so critical.

Hybrid as a strategic choice – not a compromise

A hybrid approach doesn’t mean being unable to make a decision. It means making a deliberate one. What hybrid infrastructures actually deliver can be distilled into two core benefits:

Flexibility

Companies can shift workloads to where they are best placed - based on current requirements, not past decisions. New services can be quickly tested in the cloud, while proven systems remain where they run stably and in a compliant manner.

Scalability

Hybrid models make it possible to scale capacity on demand - for example, through cloud bursting during peak loads—without having to redesign the entire infrastructure. This reduces investment risk and improves responsiveness.

The key point is this: flexibility and scalability are not created by technology alone. They depend on a well-designed operating model with clear responsibilities, clean interfaces, and active management across all environments. If this is not considered from the outset, it doesn’t create freedom of action - it creates new complexity instead.

Strategy, integration, and operations in one hand

Axians supports companies in designing modern, hybrid IT infrastructures - from the initial assessment through to stable operations. As a 360° ICT provider with a local presence and the strength of an international network, we combine strategic consulting, technical implementation, and operational management into an end-to-end model.

We take responsibility across the entire lifecycle: from analysing the current situation and defining the target architecture, through design and migration, all the way to managed services in operation - including monitoring, security, FinOps, and lifecycle management. Swiss data centres, local expertise, and a clear understanding of regulatory requirements ensure data sovereignty and compliance.

In this way, a hybrid infrastructure does not become an additional layer of complexity, but a controllable, secure, and economically sustainable foundation - not only for today’s IT operations, but also for tomorrow’s AI workloads. Those who set up their infrastructure in a hybrid and sovereign way today create the foundation to actually leverage that potential tomorrow.