Why enterprises are turning to multi-cloud deployments

It wasn’t so long ago that cloud computing was the newest tech trend in town, championed as the perfect solution for efficient and inexpensive computing. Skyrocketing demand over the last decade has since birthed mammoth cloud providers with extensive presence around the world, making the cloud an undeniable linchpin of modern infrastructure and digital transformation initiatives.

With its growing maturity, even enterprises are migrating mission-critical systems to public cloud platforms to take advantage of the cloud’s agility and scalability. Indeed, so prevalent is cloud use that many businesses today rely on more than one cloud platform or cloud service.

And instead of focusing on finding the “best” public cloud platforms, the conversation today typically revolves around effective strategies for multi-cloud integration and deployments.

Unsurprisingly, businesses are turning to cloud systems that reduce their workloads and are easy to deploy. This ranges from mundane systems such as email services, Domain Name System (DNS) servers, content management systems, cloud-based storage and even video conferencing systems. This has since expanded into high-performance databases, sophisticated data warehousing platforms and advanced machine learning engines.

With businesses quick to take advantage of new capabilities as they are released, modern cloud systems have evolved into a complex interweave of cloud-powered systems consisting of cloud services, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) instances, and newer containers-based deployments. For enterprises with legacy hardware or considerations around security and regulatory compliance, there are also on-premises deployments within data centres that must be properly interconnected.

One of the initial driving forces for going multi-cloud stems from the fact that not all cloud services are available in every region, though this is starting to be less of an issue as cloud providers expand globally. Today, the focus is more leveraging the best-of-the-breed cloud capabilities, from cloud-based file sharing, to IaaS platforms that best fits the current needs of the organisation.

It is worth noting that public cloud providers can often very different, despite features that appear similar. Moreover, each espouses a different architectural philosophy and preferences to cloud implementation that sets them apart. For instance, one IaaS cloud may allow highly-granular adjustments to the specifications of a cloud instance, while another may offer better support for new paradigms such as serverless architectures.

By not restricting their choices to a single cloud provider, enterprises gain ready access to the best-of-the-breed features for their deployment needs. The use of more than one cloud also increases reliability by reducing the possibility of a cloud outage having a catastrophic impact on the business, while building the IT team’s familiarity with multiple clouds can pre-empt the likelihood of cloud lock-in in the future.

Of course, a balanced discourse about the merits of a multi-cloud deployment must acknowledge that they do require more technical expertise to set up and run. System engineers must be familiar not just with on-premises systems but must also be competent with the many cloud platforms and services that the company relies on. Given the rapid cadence of development in the cloud, this knowledge base must be constantly updated through frequent training for them to stay relevant.

According to one study¹, one of the biggest problems enterprises experience is the managing and migration of their data from one cloud to another. A successful implementation requires effective and deep planning – and the requisite experience to do it well. However, the same study noted that organisations were able to benefit substantially from multi-cloud deployments once these issues were successfully tackled and resolved.

It is evident that multi-cloud deployments are the way of the future, giving businesses significantly greater choice and flexibility in their IT deployments. Indeed, a Gartner report late last year concluded² that a multi-cloud strategy will become the common approach for 70% of enterprises in 2019. This means that rather than avoiding the inevitable, businesses should get aboard the multi-cloud bandwagon to take advantage of it today.

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¹https://www.cloudpro.co.uk/cloud-essentials/hybrid-cloud/7216/70-of-enterprises-will-be-implementing-a-multi-cloud-strategy-by

²https://www.itprotoday.com/premisecloud/multi-cloud-strategy-can-be-tough-worthwhile-study