Building Multi-Clouds And Hybrids Come With Some Challenges

Implementing a multi-cloud strategy comes with some challenges. The discussion showed that they are typical for most companies:

• Tools on the sites of different providers vary. This complicates the construction of multi-clouds. Because of this, building a secure infrastructure when working with multiple clouds is almost impossible.
• Companies often need more trust in cloud security. This slows down the digital development of the business: IT departments have to dive deep into the principles of the functioning of the cloud to argue with the company’s management about their reliability and benefits from implementation.
• Migration to the cloud, which precedes the creation of multi-clouds, requires staff training, changes in business and IT processes, revision of approaches to the use of services and redistribution of data flows. These are global changes that can be a big shock for businesses. To smooth the transition to the cloud, you must migrate gradually, only after developing a migration plan and training a competent team.

Multi-Cloud – A Way To Comprehensively Solve Business Problems

According to the participants of the discussion, the multi-cloud strategy solves several problems at once:

• Transfer of capital expenditures to operating expenses. Companies do not need to invest in hardware and licensed software: in the cloud, you can get any resources you need with a subscription payment.
• Reduced competency requirements. When working in the cloud, the provider performs part of the tasks of administering and configuring services – this is especially true for companies that lack IT specialists with the necessary competencies.
• Increasing the availability of technology. You can connect almost any service on request in the cloud: analytics tools, anti-virus protection, and storage. Connecting new tools requires a large investment and time when working with physical infrastructure.
• Reduced time to market. The cloud is ideal for testing hypotheses and products in “combat” conditions. It takes a minimum of time to deploy test environments in the cloud, which speeds up the transition to production and reduces time to market.

What To Consider When Building MultiCloud: Expert Opinions

1. Multi-cloud is better than physical infrastructure, but a hybrid strategy is better than a multi-cloud one because a hybrid implementation always has its physical infrastructure available.
2. It is better to migrate gradually, starting with the transfer of small tasks to the cloud. A staged migration will help you evaluate the cost-effectiveness of working with clouds.
3. To build and work with multi-clouds, you need a competent team with an infrastructure architect. With this, building and maintaining a single multi-cloud will be easier.
4. The less technology and tools, the better. Unreasonable expansion of the technology stack complicates the support and operation of the multi-cloud. It is better to use the minimum required set of technologies that is the same on different platforms.
5. Choosing a cloud provider is one of the main stages. It is necessary to consider the quality of technical support and the team’s competence, the range of available services, their cost and the experience of other customers.