BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION
Multi-cloud management for improved agility and resiliency
Over the past decade, cloud technology has seen widespread adoption, especially in the area of enterprise IT. Along the path to cloud adoption, IT organisations have been shifting workloads from traditional environments to various cloud service providers (CSPs) such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud.
Most often, it is possible that a single cloud service vendor is not able to fulfil all of an organization’s cloud needs. And that is precisely the reason why many businesses opt for a multi-cloud strategy -- a type of deployment in which organisations leverage the resources of more than one cloud service provider. In fact, as per the 2022 “State of the Cloud” Report, 89% of companies have a multi-cloud strategy.
There are several benefits to using multiple clouds, some of which are given below.
Increased reliability and business agility:
Increased availability and reliability are a given while pursuing a multi-cloud strategy. It also allows enterprises to derive benefits from a provider’s areas of strengths and add essential business capabilities depending on the need of the hour.
Reduced risk of vendor lock-in:
Multi-cloud deployments give organisations the option of not having to compulsorily use options provided by a particular cloud vendor, thus bringing down the dependency on one particular provider.
Lowered costs:
In a bid to attract clients, cloud providers offer multiple discounts, cost savings, and pay-as-you-go models. Enterprises, in an attempt to take advantage of these various options, end up opting for multiple cloud providers.However, it is important to note that it is not all sunshine and roses while using multiple cloud services. There are challenges that come in the way of adopting a multi-cloud strategy. Mixing multiple cloud providers, environments, and services can greatly increase complexity, leading to inconsistent monitoring and management across cloud providers. Personnel to manage such complex environments are also in short supply. In addition, it is no surprise that the usage of multiple clouds increases the security risk for organisations.
Make way for multi-cloud management solutions
The challenges of a multi-cloud strategy can be counteracted successfully with a multi-cloud management solution. Multi-cloud management solutions or platforms enable IT teams to oversee the operations of multiple clouds from a centralised management platform. This supports and simplifies the process of managing multiple cloud platforms. Let’s look at some of the benefits of a multi-cloud management solution.
Simplified monitoring:
Multi-cloud management platforms make it easy to monitor a complex multi-cloud environment that spans across several CSPs (cloud service providers). They give a bird’s-eye view of the entire multi-cloud environment, often providing developers self-service access to the available resources. This helps in checking workloads, choosing the best cloud environment for applications, and keeping track of the business benefits of multi-cloud. A robust multi-cloud management platform helps IT teams migrate workloads across service providers, when any environment fails, thus increasing the resiliency of the network.
Increased security:
Tracking security policies and warding off security attacks across CSPs is certainly not an easy task. A lax approach to security could have serious repercussions for the organisation, making it vulnerable to and a victim of attacks. Multi-cloud management platforms often come with in-built security monitoring and automation, making it much easier for IT teams to keep the environment safe and secure.
Optimised cost management:
Most enterprises adopt a multi-cloud approach to take advantage of the discounts and benefits offered by multiple cloud service providers. Given the impact of multi-cloud usage on enterprise IT, cost management does get relegated to the background. Multi-cloud management solutions come to the rescue by helping your enterprise more easily track usage and costs.
Reduced load on IT teams:
All the benefits discussed so far go a long way in easing the burden on IT teams. A multi-cloud management solution enables them to manage workloads more effectively and efficiently across clouds. It also helps eliminate the need to train current or new team members on your enterprise’s various cloud accounts and, in turn, reduces the number of access credentials needed.
One thing is for certain, to plan for future growth, enterprise IT will need to have strategic plans in place and adopt multi-clouds to manage applications and resources. In order to have end-to-end visibility across all the network resources, multi-cloud management platforms will be needed for the long run and are here to stay.
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