A multi-cloud world is quickly becoming the new normal for many enterprises. A multi-cloud approach empowers different divisions with the autonomy to select the right computing environment for their needs. It also enables a lift-and-shift ability to port workloads across cloud service providers (CSPs) when needed. Adopting a multi-cloud model could bring performance benefits, cost savings or better scalability, all while encouraging a more vendor-neutral stance. The adoption of multi cloud accelerated in India at the time of pandemic, especially as enterprises adopted new technologies to address their needs. Multi-cloud adoption has emerged as a valuable cloud strategy that is enabling enterprises to become more agile. IDC predicts by 2022, over 90% of enterprises worldwide will be relying on a mix of on-premises, dedicated private clouds, multiple public clouds, and legacy platforms to meet their infrastructure needs.
Prashanth GJ, CEO at TechnoBind, said “In today’s rapid innovation in technology, companies need to adopt the same, hence digital transformation becomes a means of survival, as these technologies bring agility to business at a never-before scale and current cloud technologies provide the tools and infrastructure to be the catalyst for this change. These technologies help companies who adopt to go towards the realization of digital transformation, thereby making them competitive in a rapidly changing digital world, more so ever important now, with Data being the new oil. In addition to adopting cloud technologies, companies should also look at implementing a new form of technologies that speed up, automate and improve the business like Artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, and the Internet of things. By investing in such technologies ensure better scalability, maintain security, disaster recovery, and more in an organization.”
Prashanth further added, “A company’s top priority should be to integrate these new technologies in this digital era, it is possible with the adoption of cloud technologies, being in the cloud means attaining instant agility and interoperability due to its native embedded connectivity, thereby gaining intelligence and take smart decisions due to the interoperability, and that leads to building a reliable infrastructure for digital transformation.”
Some of the must have features to consider while choosing a multi-cloud management platform are service provisioning, service monitoring, service performance, service governance/policy, service orchestration, monitoring analytics, integration with security. A multi-cloud management system primarily helps an organization to achieve the following goals:
Self-service capabilities: The strategy eliminates the traditional and cumbersome processes related to IT resource provisioning.
Workflow automation: Cloud management enables workflow automation. You can take the actionable steps needed to create and manage computing instances without human intervention.
Cloud analysis: With cloud analysis and monitoring, you can utilize the best available services based on your requirements. What’s more, you can change cloud providers or migrate workloads from the public to private clouds in case of un-optimized resources.
Operating and managing an environment supported by multiple cloud providers and services poses distinct challenges. Despite the ability to mix and match capabilities, migrating to a multi-cloud paradigm can have downsides. However, IT and business leaders need to address these hurdles. The business leaders have to understand that cloud environments and making decisions about multi-cloud management can be complex. Challenges in Multi-Cloud management may include; management complexity, talent scarcity, cost control, governance, compliance and security concerns, interoperability, lack of app management and shortage of skilled staff. On the other hand, a well-managed multi-cloud deployment can increase reliability, reduce the risk of vendor lock-in, and add essential business capabilities. Hence, to automate tasks and optimize costs, enterprises need a robust multi-cloud management platform. The rising need for various applications is driving the adoption of these platforms among end-users.