I’ll get straight to the point. Having only one cloud provider is a single point of failure.
For large organizations, it comes down to reliability and choice.
Relying on just one cloud provider is like putting all your eggs in one basket. It's a single point of failure that can have disastrous consequences for businesses.
We have seen firsthand how even the biggest and most reliable cloud providers can experience outages that can last for hours, which can greatly impact large organizations. Companies that relied solely on that provider are left to find alternative solutions, while those with a multi-cloud strategy were able to quickly switch over to another provider and continue operating.
Sometimes it is just better to have options, especially when it comes to something as critical as your data and applications. This enhanced flexibility can be crucial in providing adequate availability and organizational choice. By using multiple cloud providers, organizations have the ability to choose the one that best meets their needs, whether it's based on cost, performance, or other factors.
Increased reliability: By using multiple cloud providers, organizations can increase the reliability of their applications and data. If one cloud provider experiences an outage, the applications and data can still be accessed from the other cloud providers.
Reduced costs: Multicloud can help reduce costs by allowing organizations to choose the best cloud provider for each specific need. For example, a company might choose to use AWS for its compute and storage services, Azure for its database services, and GCP for its machine learning services.
Increased flexibility: Multicloud can help increase the flexibility of IT infrastructure. By using multiple cloud providers, organizations can easily scale their infrastructure up, down, or out as needed. This can be helpful for businesses maximizing agility and enhanced resiliency.
Improved security: Multicloud can help organizations improve the security of their applications and data by spreading the workload across multiple cloud providers. This makes it more difficult for attackers to gain access to all of the data.
A path toward greater reliability and resilience is to embrace a multi-cloud strategy. This allows you to spread your workloads across multiple providers, ensuring that if one provider experiences an outage, you can still keep your business running.
Joseph Pastor
As these validations have shown, multicloud solutions can lead to better outcomes for organizations. Being locked into a single cloud provider does not mean the organization is getting the best value/return on investment, or the best performance for their applications.
Last year, the department of defense announced their strategy going forward.
Here’s a link to check it out:
DoD Signals a Multicloud Shift for JWCC Contract
Organizations are realizing that adopting multicloud and hybrid-cloud strategies is a competitive advantage. Earlier this year, a survey found that 81% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy in place or are planning to implement one.
Why Organizations Choose A Multicloud Strategy (gartner.com)
https://lnkd.in/eQmC8_js
While there are many benefits to multicloud, there are also some challenges. These challenges include:
Complexity: Managing a multicloud environment can be complex, companies need to track and manage resources across multiple cloud providers.
Security: Multicloud environments can be more difficult to secure than single-cloud environments. This is because data is spread across multiple cloud providers, which can make it more difficult to protect.
Cost: Multicloud can be more expensive than single-cloud deployments, as organizations need to pay for resources from multiple cloud providers.
Luckily there are options for addressing each of these concerns to simplify a multicloud environment strategy. Cloud management platforms can provide a single pane of glass to manage and deploy resources into multiple provider clouds.
There are also best practices an organization can follow to reduce complexity. Using standardized infrastructure and making use of open standards can ensure a much easier transition when moving between cloud providers.
Having a multi-layered security approach is vital for any organization. The additional defensive force each layer provides can prevent an attacker that has already gained access to your network from acquiring data or gaining access to critical resources.
Cost. This point is ironic as I have previously stated this to be a benefit. Let me explain.
The cloud is not cheaper than hosting your own datacenter. This is because the cloud is rented datacenter space. Is it cheaper to rent or own a car? Multicloud could be cheaper; costs and the return on investment must first be taken into consideration. What the approach offers is the ability to negotiate with cloud service providers and move if the situation were to arise, giving greater organizational agility.
"By 2023, 90% of organizations will be using a multicloud strategy, up from 40% in 2022. This shift is being driven by a number of factors, including the need for agility, scalability, and cost savings."
-Gartner
Gartner also predicts that the market for multicloud management tools will grow to $10.8 billion by 2023. This growth is being driven by the need for organizations to manage their multicloud environments more effectively.
More than simply avoiding downtime – it's about protecting the organization's reputation and ensuring that customers can always access company services. By diversifying the cloud portfolio, organizations can minimize the risk of a single point of failure, maximize leverage with public cloud providers while reducing costs, and provide better service to customers.