The multi-cloud operating strategy has become a standard for IT organisations that want to make digital transformation a reality, regardless of their business size. It is in fact quite evident that companies that focus primarily on IT are investing more and more resources in a multi-cloud operating model.
Why is adopting a multi-cloud strategy so essential?
According to a HashiCorp State of Cloud Strategy Survey, a stunning 76% of the enterprises surveyed have already adopted multi-cloud strategies. This percentage could very well increase to 86% over the course of the next two years.
The adoption of this type of strategy is certainly driven by important business and technological factors, which bring along with them relevant competitive advantages and values. Among these, the ones that carry most weight can be traced back to several factors:
- The start of a digital transformation;
- The caution to avoid a single main supplier;
- The reduction of costs;
- A greater capacity of downsizing;
- A lower likelihood of risks from human error or rapid geopolitical changes.
However, as the cloud and multicloud begin to be the standard, some difficulties and challenges arise to make them effectively operational. Difficulties that result in a lack of expertise and workflow problems due to its complexity.
There are various strategies to overcome this problem, various approaches to operate the multicloud:
Multicloud strategies: the next step of the cloud
The multicloud can be implemented through various methodologies. It consist entirely of public cloud specs, or a combination of private and public specs. It is a versatile tool that can be exploited in many ways, depending on the requirements and the specific criticalities that one intends to mitigate with it.
Let's see what the different options are.
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Extension
An extension is defined as the ability to bring some functionality of an application or group of services from the on-premise world to the cloud.
We can find an example of such a strategic model in an application that needs specialised hardware within its own private-cloud (or on-premises). In this case, it is possible to migrate certain functionalities that would be more advantageous on cloud (e.g. DBaaS or LBaaS) and in fact 'extend' what is seen from the outside as a single application, expanding its features.
Segmentation
Segmentation is defined as the process in whichapplications or services are precisely segmented. This strategy is the simplest in a multi-cloud perspective and consists of dividing applications and services across multiple platforms. A concrete example is CRM on Salesforce, mail and documents with Office365, and a custom Remote App in the private infrastructure.
Load Balancing
The latter is undoubtedly the most effective strategy but also the most complex to adopt. The term load balancing refers to the ability to schedule a certain application or workloadon multiple clouds at the same time, moving workloads to where it is most convenient without service disruptions or any end-user perception.
An excellent example of how to adopt a load balancing strategy in multicloud is an application integrated with Kubernetes, in which case a homogeneous development and release environment could be achieved, but at the same time spatially dispersed across multiple cloud platforms.
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