Multi-cloud: What does it mean for your organization?

Multi-cloud is a strategy where an organization leverages two or more cloud computing platforms to perform various tasks. Organizations that do not want to depend on a single cloud provider may choose to use resources from several providers to get the best benefits from each unique service.

If you’re one of the emerging start-ups coming out of Singapore, San Francisco, Manilla or Bangalore, chances are you arebuilding your IT infrastructure and application stack from cloud services of a single vendor. In traditional enterprise setting, the situation is a little different though. Enterprise ITtends to rely on multiple cloud vendors, including private and public clouds without untapping the benefits of the multi-cloud initiative.

Enterprise IT is in the midst of a great cloud migration and a lot of this migration is happeningon the back of a single cloud vendor. We are witnessing largest of banks, government agencies, exchanges, FMCGs, pharma companies, education institutesrushing though their migration strategiesand they are making the same mistake: putting all their eggs in the same basket.

The downsides of single cloud strategy

In the short term, a single cloud strategy doesn’tlook so bad. Major cloud vendors throwevery of their possible resources to make the migration experience as smooth for your organization as possible. Downsides start to surface down the line when you’re no more a new customer and have consumed all your signup bonuses.This is the time when the vendor will start billing you at the market rate.You will be forced to negotiate a renewedcontract, which may extend somefavors to the vendor againstproviding you with a competitive rate.

Even without a lock-in period, cloud migrations,to or from,are a nightmare thanks in part to the lack of common standards of cloud interoperabilityand stubbornness of cloud vendors in letting their customers go.

Moreover, every cloud vendor has its own share of strengths and weaknesses.A cloud service provider may have exclusive services unfound in competiting cloud service providers. The idea behind a multi-cloud strategy is to get the best of each cloud platform’s services.

For example, AWS may be the ultimate cloud service provider for startups and tech firms; it is not very dependable for conventional enterprises running their application in a hybrid of cloud and hybrid datacenters. Amazon doesn’t show any keenness in that direction either. On the other hand, Microsoft has an excellent support for applications running ina hybrid environment with its Azure cloud services and is, thus, more popular with enterprises. In addition, Microsoft Azure is preferred by security centric organizations because of Microsoft’s transparent security policies and past reputation with breaches.

How does AWS work?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud computing platform that enables users to access on-demand compute and storage resources. AWS is designed to provide users with scalable, pay-as-you-go resources that can be rapidly deployed and easily managed. Organizations realize the full potential of AWS when they enter

Moving towards a multi-cloud future

Being subscribed to more than one cloud vendors and having a coherent multi-cloud strategy are two different things. Organizations often mistake one for the same thing and complaint they are not drawing any of the perceived benefits of going multi-cloud.

A multi-cloud strategy means bringing together the best of cloud services from each cloud vendorin a single application stack. For example, if you’re developing a JavaScript-based application, then you don’t have to rely on a single cloud service provider for everything from runtime environment to database. For instance,you may runthe MongoDB databasewith MongoDB Atlas on Microsoft Azure andhost NodeJS on an EC2 instance, employing AWS SDK for JavaScript. If you wish to pack the application in Docker containers and manage the containers via Kubernetes, you may employ Google Container Engine and Google Kubernetes Enginerespectively.

Youmust choose the cloud services best fitted to your IT infrastructure, application stack and, of course,bottom-line regardless of the cloud service provider. There are several benefits to a comprehensive multi-cloud strategy.

Benefits of a multi-cloud strategy

When you rely on a cloud vendor with all your IT needs, you don’t think through, expect for the immediate benefits. Cloud migration is a tedious job and keeps organizations preoccupied to think through the potential problems with their decision. But IT or otherwise, relying on a single organization to keep your business in order is a bad idea. With a multi-cloud strategy, you can keep these problems at bay. Adopting a multi-cloud strategy has its complications, but the benefits far outweigh them.

Break the vendor lock-in

Despite what major cloud vendors advertise on their website and marketing materials make you believe;they do not wish you to migrate from their cloud services to another one and as such they don’t make the process easy. Data migrations are already harder—a lack of support from the host cloud service provider makes them an absolute nightmare.

By spreading your organization’s IT across cloud services from various vendors, you have got yourself freedom from tyranny of cloud vendors. In case of discontent with your primary service provider, you may move the part of the stack to another cloud vendor without much friction.

Improve cost to performance ratio

Each cloud vendor has a unique price model. That is, if you’re after a managed Kubernetes service, you may opt for either Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) or Elastic Kubernetes Services (EKS)depending upon which one is offering bestcost to performance ratio. In case one of the cloud vendors revise their price for the cloud service in the future, you may reconsider the options and move to another managed Kubernetes service which is offering the lowest price for maximum performance at that time

This freedom can result in some serious cost savings in a long-term basis while your users will appreciate performance of the application.

Compliance?

Regulations like HIPAA and GDPR put a high stake on service providers handling sensitive, medical and personal data. Moving to a multi-cloud strategy means you may opt-in for the cloud service providers providing best compliance with the current regulation around data security. Did you know when you sign up with a cloud service provider as a subcontractor, they are as much responsible for non-compliance as you are?

Resilience

Cloud service providers experience downtime, which may affecta subset of their cloud services or all of them. Past outages in AWS haveled to customers losing access to their Netflix and Amazon accounts. If your IT is dispersed across multiple cloud service providers, you can mitigate most of these problems by sharing load across available cloud modules to the cloud services.

Is it the time to go multi-cloud?

Multi-cloud is a gradual exercise, you can’t expand your IT across multiple cloud services just like that. It takes thorough planning and strategizing each step in your journey towards a multi-cloud future. Benefits may not surface at once. Building your infrastructure and application stack around more than one cloud vendors take time and need enormous efforts from your cloud architects. The implementation also carries substantial costs. But once you’re past the deployment phase and you start seeing the benefits, the prosfast outweigh the cons. Not to mention, you would not be tied down to a single company on deciding the fate of you cloud futures.