As the cloud computing market proliferates, many enterprises are beginning to shift towards a multi-cloud approach. Many businesses are exploring and adopting multiple cloud infrastructures at once, including public, private, and hybrid clouds.
The demand for multi-cloud has arrived for many organizations because of business needs or regulatory requirements such as unique data storage or compliance policies. The proactive and flexible approach required to implement multiple clouds offers enterprises several advantages over traditional data center deployments.
92 percent of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy; 82 percent have a hybrid cloud strategy – Flexera 2021 State of the Cloud Report
The world is changing, and so is the way we use technology. There’s been a lot written lately about multi-cloud. The concept is not new, but it’s seemingly gaining traction for enterprise IT departments where agility and optimization are top priorities. But what exactly is multi-cloud, and what does it have to offer your business? What are the benefits? Here’s an introduction that will give you a high-level overview of what going multi-cloud entails.
What is multi-cloud infrastructure?
Cloud computing is the future of enterprise IT, and it has become more than just a buzzword. Cloud technology is changing the way businesses operate, and as a result, many companies are adopting this new method of working.
Enter multi-cloud infrastructure: an emerging trend in cloud computing that makes it possible for businesses to harness the power of multiple clouds simultaneously. By employing multi-cloud infrastructure to run your business, you can blend cloud solutions from different providers together and create a customized environment for your organization—allowing you to get more out of your IT solutions in general.
Source: Cloudflare
Multi-cloud infrastructures enable organizations to leverage different cloud environments for various purposes. This allows customers to get the best of both worlds: the cost savings of public cloud services combined with the performance, security, and control of private cloud infrastructure. To understand why multi-cloud is becoming more critical for enterprises, it’s essential to understand what multi-cloud is.
Multi-cloud refers to multiple cloud providers being used in conjunction for different workloads. For example, using Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for compute and storage and AWS for database services is one example of a multi-cloud environment. Some companies might even choose to use two or more public clouds at once, such as GCP and AWS.
Why do organizations choose a multi-cloud strategy?
Organizations are increasingly moving to multi-cloud because they want to take advantage of multiple features of different cloud services simultaneously.
One of the significant reasons for choosing a multi-cloud strategy is that it gives you control over the application and infrastructure vital to your business’s success.
The best part is that running applications across different clouds help in reducing costs significantly. With a multi-cloud approach, you access multiple tools that help monitor your applications in real-time. You can also check the performance of your applications and infrastructure in real-time. This way, you do not have to incur huge costs by prematurely scaling up or down.
Source: Flexera
The ability to scale deployments up or down during peak demand times is another reason why enterprises prefer a multi-cloud strategy over a single cloud strategy. Since multiple clouds are involved in this approach, the risk associated with one cloud vendor’s outage can be reduced significantly.
Thanks to consistent management tools, easy monitoring and logging can be done from one centralized location.
7 reasons why multi-cloud infrastructure is the future of enterprise IT
Multi-cloud infrastructure is the next generation of enterprise IT. As the cloud becomes a more popular way of working, companies demand more than one cloud provider. This allows them to use multiple cloud providers depending on their needs.
The reasons for using multi-cloud rather than sticking with one cloud provider is often based on cost savings and flexibility in IT services.
Here are seven key reasons why multi-cloud infrastructure is the future of enterprise IT:
1. Costs
The cost of cloud computing has been on the decline for years, and it will likely continue to decrease in the future. This trend has many reasons, including increased competition, economies of scale, and more efficient processes.
Companies that use multiple clouds can take advantage of these trends to get the most for their money. As the cost of cloud computing decreases, it becomes more and more feasible for companies to utilize multi-cloud architectures.
2. Flexibility
With multi-cloud, you can run workloads across multiple public or private clouds based on requirements and priorities. Since organizations aren’t tied to one particular cloud provider, they aren’t locked into one technology or product. This allows them to use multiple cloud services or private clouds in different geographic locations.
To meet the stringent SLAs and cost constraints, organizations integrate multiple clouds, thus creating a hybrid cloud environment and allowing them to achieve elasticity by scaling up or down without any complexities.
3. High availability
With multi-cloud, you can keep your applications available at all times by running them on multiple clouds. As companies make the switch to cloud computing, they’ll be able to choose from all different types of providers, whether they’re public or private, large or small.
Having so many options can be suitable for businesses because it means that they’ll have access to a wider variety of services and applications. This allows them to find just what they’re looking for without having to compromise on certain features or functionality.
Source: AnalystPOV
4. Scalability
You can scale your applications faster by running them across multiple clouds. Multi-cloud computing enables companies to scale applications and infrastructure up or down based on the load. When there is high demand for an application, all it takes is a few clicks of the mouse to add more servers and increase performance based on its demands.
With an on-demand model, you can instantly add resources as your business grows or shrinks, saving money on infrastructure costs.
5. Security
With multi-cloud, you can run workloads in regions that suit your compliance and security needs. Businesses can keep data safe by storing it in various cloud platforms by using multiple cloud services. Data is still available from other sources if one service crashes or fails.
The virtual servers in the cloud work as per your instructions, and only you have access to your data.
6. Collaboration
Cloud-based applications make it possible for multiple users to access information from any location, making them ideal for global organizations.
Multi-cloud solutions allow you to work with different vendors, which helps you build relationships that open up new collaboration opportunities. You might even discover ways to combine your products or services to create new solutions that deliver better results than before.
7. Performance
The cloud can help improve performance by offloading work from local servers onto high-speed internet connections (usually, fiber optic). In the case of Amazon Web Services, this means that you can use multiple AZs and multiple regions.
You get additional levels of redundancy with your application by spreading across several different providers and faster speeds if you need to implement global content delivery networks (CDNs).
Wrapping up
Multi-cloud infrastructure is the very foundation of cloud computing. Cloud computing delivers the ability to access, manage, and process multiple applications across multiple infrastructures.
Source: 7 Reasons Why Multi-Cloud Infrastructure is the Future of Enterprise IT