Significant majority of enterprises is adopting a multi-cloud approach and the number of such organizations is growing every year. It is predicted that all enterprises will have to gain multi-cloud capabilities in near future. In fact, only about fifteen percent organizations are yet to implement multi-cloud computing and will have to engage multi-cloud providers sooner or later.
Importance of a multi-cloud strategy
Even if the major players in cloud services have made sure that their offerings include a wide assortment of cloud solutions, these players differ from each other in their focus areas. Hence you will find that Amazon Web Services has been busy expanding the range of cloud services in the domain of storage to stay ahead of the competition in this category.
If you are contemplating to deploy apps associated with Windows client, then Microsoft Azure would be a better choice. This explains the need to have a multi-cloud strategy. If you want to empower your enterprise terms of cloud hosting services having diverse functionalities, then there is no alternative to adopt a broader approach.
Key guidelines for a sound multi-cloud strategy
Unless you have been able to perceive the entire system having multi-cloud functionalities as a unified entity, there is no sense in adoption of a multi-cloud approach.
In practice, users should be able to use a single login console to access different clouds instead of juggling with a multiple procedures for every cloud. A single window approach can certainly facilitate management of multiple clouds irrespective of the applications.
Using a single interface to operate multiple clouds can also considerably enhance overall efficiency of users. In the initial phase of designing a multi-cloud approach, one should be ready with an in-depth assessment of applications and their expectations from different cloud services. This must be followed by analysis of workloads and the entire gamut of IT infrastructure.
Getting ready
It is often observed that users are generally not keen to find out which cloud service hosting is behind their applications. This calls for development of platform oriented expertise that would streamline overall IT operations. This knowledge can definitely help them develop, manage, and install various workloads in different clouds.
Ideally, the team members should develop keen knowledge and gain in-depth expertise in whichever cloud service they are using. This underlines the need to train your own people instead of outsourcing the staff from other third party cloud service providers.
Instead of relying on every platform’s data protection strategies, you must develop flawlessly compliant regulatory policies in terms of security, backup or restore. Your entire staff should be trained to bridge security policies of all existing cloud providers so that there is no scope for aggressive intrusion from cyber criminals.
Adopting a simplified environment of multi-cloud
As mentioned earlier, the secret of handling diverse cloud providing services that individually offer distinctive features is to be able to manage these as a singular system. The best approach would be to institute an environment that is guided by software defined systems and a well-researched policy.
Simplified data transfer and intercommunication between different cloud providers needs to be achieved for the purpose of unified control. This must be aimed at integration of services provided by AWS, GCP and Microsoft Azure.
A well laid out software defined approach helps transparent as well as automatic communication and also facilitates mirroring, remote mirroring, and remote replication. It can also address application failover support between clouds. Reputed service providers offer Software Defined Solutions and make sure that storage arrays are built at cloud providers’ facilities as well as at user side.
Use policy as a foundation
In order to implement a seamless multi-cloud environment, you need to build a rock-solid foundation by designing a feasible and practical approach to adoption of a multi-cloud system. Management of a multi-cloud system is only possible by leveraging the SDS software which is backed by a robust policy that provides a set of directives regarding behavior of every individual component as well as its role in overall system.
Attributes of the multi-cloud platform
Basically, a multi-cloud deployment should supported by guidelines to adopt right cloud solutions that allow users select their specific deployment needs. This would facilitate the platform to select the most viable cloud service model.
Once you have a proper understanding of the architectural design, you can easily compare different service providers in terms of performance and pricing. This enables proper selection of the right service provider by comparing different options.
Reputed multi-cloud management platforms provide a feature for monitoring with help of a centralized console that enables users to view entire information with regards to different services. You can track CPU consumption, disk utilization, and also gain valuable insights with help of real-time metrics.
Cost optimization is an essential attribute of the right multi-cloud management solution. By analyzing patterns of utilization in terms of all available cloud services, one can fine tune the service allotments with needs of the infrastructure.
For Interesting Topic : What Is Cloud Hosting Definition?