Not so long ago, there was a debate about whether businesses could or should use public cloud resources at all. Today, however, such discussions seem to be a thing of the past. Especially following the experiences of the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, more and more organizations are adopting a cloud-first approach, where the public cloud is the default environment for new IT projects, and strong arguments are needed to launch anything in an on-premises data center. ERP and CRM systems, as well as RPA solutions, are being migrated to the cloud. Sustainability concerns also speak in favor of the cloud. The cloud culture has dominated business. But that is not all. It is increasingly recognized that one cloud is not enough. That is why we hear about multi-cloud from all sides. What is multi-cloud?
Multi-cloud is a strategy that involves using two or more cloud computing platforms to deliver IT services to customers inside and outside the organization. The cloud offerings of individual providers differ in many respects, so multi-cloud allows for the creation of diverse cloud solutions perfectly tailored to unique needs. A multi-cloud approach translates into greater flexibility, provides better cost control, and opens up new technological possibilities. Crucially, it does not lead to vendor lock-in, as workloads can be freely moved from one provider’s infrastructure to another as needs change. This model can apply not only to computing power but also to storage, SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). Today, virtually everything can be a service, even
RPA solutions. Furthermore, the hybrid IT environments resulting from a multi-cloud strategy consist not only of multiple public clouds but also private clouds, traditional on-premises infrastructure, and edge computing systems. Multi-cloud solutions are usually built based on
cloud-native open-source technologies. The Kubernetes container orchestration platform has become almost a standard in this area.
What are the main differences between multi-cloud and hybrid cloud?
Practically no organization relies 100% on the public cloud. The main reasons are issues related to legal regulations, data control, protection of sensitive data or intellectual property, and sometimes internal financial or tax issues. Therefore, most modern IT environments are a mix of public and private clouds, on-premises data center infrastructure, and edge computing, sometimes including colocation resources – all of which form a single hybrid cloud of corporate resources. Not every hybrid cloud must involve a multi-cloud approach. An organization can use services from only one public cloud provider within its hybrid setup. However, it can just as well use services from multiple providers – in that case, we would call it a hybrid multi-cloud. On the other hand, does a multi-cloud approach imply hybridization? Theoretically no, but in practice – as mentioned earlier, very few organizations rely 100% on the public cloud – if a multi-cloud strategy is implemented, we are very likely talking about a hybrid setup.
Is it worth implementing in an enterprise?
If a company fears vendor lock-in and needs high flexibility while having to react quickly to a changing situation, then a multi-cloud strategy can be valuable. Similarly, if a company cannot afford even minimal downtime, a multi-cloud strategy may prove to be the best choice. Although cloud providers offer a high level of availability and security, one cannot completely rule out a “black swan” event that leads to a catastrophic failure at one of them. To mitigate this risk, it is worth implementing a multi-cloud strategy. Multi-cloud can also be treated as a proactive approach to shadow IT, i.e., employees and business departments using cloud services in an uncontrolled manner, without IT’s knowledge and sometimes in violation of corporate security policies. By choosing multi-cloud, you can protect against this by providing users with more cloud options upfront.
The biggest advantages of the multi-cloud approach
We have already mentioned the benefits of a multi-cloud strategy: independence from a single vendor, greater flexibility and responsiveness, cost control, and access to a wider range of technological options – even the offerings of the largest providers do not fully overlap. All this translates into a better return on investment in cloud services. Multi-cloud gives enterprises additional opportunities to maximize the value offered by the cloud. However, these are certainly not all the advantages worth mentioning. Depending on the organization’s specific situation, benefits also include advanced capabilities for simultaneous scaling across multiple providers, lower latency due to the ability to choose specific data centers from different providers that offer the best performance in this regard, and a wider choice in the context of legal or industry regulations. Multi-cloud also offers a higher level of security, as it reduces the risk of successful DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks.
The biggest disadvantages of the multi-cloud approach
However, just as there are no free lunches, the benefits offered by multi-cloud come at a price. This includes increased complexity of the entire corporate hybrid environment and a higher level of management difficulty. There is no standardization in this area. Each cloud provider offers its own tools, and universal platforms unify the offered capabilities only to a certain extent. This is linked to the issue of personnel. Entering a new cloud requires learning its specifics – this requires effort and time. There is a shortage of specialists on the market who are multi-cloud experts. The same applies to security. To this, one must add the effort associated with cost control. Although costs can be controlled, comparing individual price lists and methods of billing for services by different providers is not easy.
What should a multi-cloud architecture look like?
Despite the difficulties and challenges, the benefits offered by multi-cloud outweigh them. The question is therefore not whether, but how to implement it. The key issue will be to limit potential problems by defining the most important business goals we want to achieve through multi-cloud. An optimal architecture is one that is tailored to the specific needs and technical requirements of the organization. The selection of individual elements, providers, and services should be preceded by a thorough market analysis in many aspects, including the scope of the offer, security, regulatory compliance, technical capabilities, and management issues. It is also worth considering the multi-cloud capabilities offered by key systems and applications already owned by the company.
What is important in planning a multi-cloud architecture?
The key to maximizing the benefits of a multi-cloud approach will be minimizing the effort put into management. It is necessary to centralize management as much as possible from a single platform. The more tasks that can be performed from a single screen, the better. Integration of logging and reporting is also important, especially in the area of security. Choosing a platform that allows for monitoring and managing resources across the entire environment – not just multi-cloud, but also hybrid – is therefore crucial.
Multi-cloud security
Finally, it is worth returning to security, one of the key issues related to the multi-cloud strategy. What are the best practices in this area? A proper approach in this area is the foundation of an effective multi-cloud strategy that maximizes benefits. As with choosing only one cloud, it is essential to understand the shared responsibility model, in which the provider is responsible for certain elements and the client for others. In the case of multi-cloud, an additional difficulty is that individual providers may divide responsibility with clients differently. With this in mind, one must strive to ensure consistency across the entire environment. It is therefore necessary to implement the same security rules and policies in all environments that make up the multi-cloud. Finally, all activities in this area should be automated as much as possible. On one hand, we free people from a large number of repetitive, routine tasks, and on the other, we minimize the risk of errors.
