Embracing multi-cloud: A flexible future for enterprises

Enterprises are increasingly utilising the multi-cloud model to bring flexibility to their cloud strategies. According to Markets and Markets, the multi-cloud market is expected to grow to almost $4.5 billion by 2022. As an increasing number of enterprises adopt a multi-cloud model, it is essential that they understand how to effectively connect their clouds in order to achieve their maximum potential.

Leveraging a multi-cloud model is fundamental to solving enterprise challenges in the cloud, enhancing operations and application performance and staying ahead in an ever-changing market climate.

A multi-cloud solution should provide a consistent yet flexible multi-cloud design that aligns with an enterprise’s IT strategies in order to achieve immediate and future goals, while staying competitive.

Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Cloud Explained:

The difference between multi-cloud and hybrid cloud is that a multi-cloud strategy can be two or more private and/or public clouds, whereas hybrid cloud is a mixture of private and public clouds.

To go into more detail, a multi-cloud strategy is the use of two or more cloud computing services. It generally refers to a mix of multiple public or private cloud environments, such as on and off premise private cloud, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, and can also relate to any implementation of multiple software-as-a-service (SaaS) or platform-as-a-service (PaaS) cloud offerings.

Hybrid cloud computing allows businesses move basic on-premise workloads to the public cloud according to demand, while benefitting from added data security and privacy by keeping mission-critical data on-premises.

According to Amazon Web Services, “hybrid cloud architectures help organisations integrate their on-premises and cloud operations to support a broad spectrum of use cases using a common set of cloud services, tools, and APIs across on-premises and cloud environments.”

How Multi-Cloud Benefits Enterprises

Public cloud platforms provided by hyperscalers lack flexibility and scalability. Relying on them alone also carries a significant level of risk due to potential outages and security concerns. A multi-cloud approach should give enterprises control across and within the clouds. It should give them the ability to flexibly adjust their connectivity to the cloud services according to their needs.

A multi-cloud approach allows enterprises to use multiple public clouds that best fit with their IT needs, be it storage or application. When implementing the strategy, enterprises need a flexible cloud networking solution that can easily enable and ensure the performance of these cloud services.

In addition,enterprises should have the agility to improve workload mobility between clouds and move faster to meet objectives. These factors are more important than ever to ensure business continuity.

Enterprises will also be able to quickly move their data and applications to another cloud provider or even back-up to a private cloud. Security features can also be implemented to ensure a robust risk management system in the multi-cloud environment.

A multi-cloud management and networking solution enables enterprises to orchestrate their data, applications and infrastructure across several cloud environments. It simplifies cloud deployment by connecting applications and workflow processes to quickly deliver business services.

Bundling the connectivity underlay between the clouds allows for a high-speed and low-latency transit layer resulting in overall better performance. Multi-cloud adoption can help enterprises achieve greater efficiencies and establish a resilient standard of virtual infrastructure.

Finally, enterprises have the advantage of choosing from multiple cloud providers and can switch whenever they need to. They should have the freedom to switch from one cloud provider as their business and IT needs evolve. It allows them to benefit from the flexibility of the cloud without being locked into a single vendor.

Connecting Future Clouds

A multi-cloud solution delivers a cloud networking platform with the simplicity and flexibility that enterprises need. It should overcome the common challenges surrounding connectivity and security across and within the cloud.

It is important to look for the best-in-class multi-cloud solution that best suits your immediate and future needs. Some of the most important features include:

  • Simplified repeatable cloud networking architecture
  • Control at the cloud VPC/VNET level
  • Secure network segmentation beyond cloud boundaries
  • Operational visibility to simplify cloud network operations
  • Dedicated ethernet connectivity across a private global network

Enterprises need to carefully consider their choice of provider as growing connections between clouds in a single environment become the norm. The right provider will enable the most efficient way to connect multiple clouds, distribute resources, mitigate downtime and minimise data loss risk.