Knowledge

Multi-Cloud Management: Everything you need to know

Multi-cloud management is the wave of the future in cloud computing. It is the process of deploying a mixture of private clouds and public clouds in an organization, to avoid vendor lock-in and exploit the best services available without having to compromise on cost. By adopting a multi-cloud strategy, organizations can choose a cloud provider that is geographically close to them thus improving performance. Multi-cloud adoption also helps organizations manage compliance requirements and improve resilience.

What is multi-cloud management?

Multi-cloud management is the process of tracking, securing, and optimizing a multi-cloud deployment. It presents different challenges than managing one cloud or managing a legacy IT setup. Each public cloud vendor has different features. Each vendor also offers different tools for managing their cloud service, their APIs, and different service-level agreements (SLAs)*. Internal employees may be experienced with one type of public cloud but not with another. In addition, the disparate clouds have to be connected and secured.

*A service-level agreement (SLA) is a contract that specifies the services a vendor will provide, and the conditions for providing those services.

multi-cloud management

What are the benefits of Multi-Cloud Management?

  • Reduced strain on IT teams: By offering simplified, centralized management, a multi-cloud management solution allows IT teams to more effectively manage applications and workloads across multiple clouds.
  • Visibility: Without multi-cloud management, it’s difficult to monitor workloads and know what’s running where in a complex environment that spans multiple cloud providers. A good multi-cloud management solution offers visibility across the entire multi-cloud environment to enable businesses to reap the benefits of multi-cloud.
  • Security: It’s challenging to keep security policies consistent across cloud providers, and the complexity of multi-cloud can contribute to security holes and an increased attack surface. A managed approach allows IT teams to deal with potential security issues proactively, rather than reactively. In addition, the best multi-cloud management platforms offer features such as security monitoring and automation, plus the ability to enforce security policies across platforms, which significantly reduces the difficulty of keeping your environment secure.
  • Cost management: While many businesses adopt a multi-cloud strategy to take advantage of discounts and cost savings offered by different cloud providers, it’s easy to lose track of costs in the increased complexity of a multi-cloud environment. It helps your business keep track of costs and usage, and some platforms even use intelligent data analysis to optimize cost management.
  • Increased availability: Availability is just one of the many advantages that businesses seek when they pursue a multi-cloud strategy. But to fully realize the benefits of multi-cloud, IT teams need to be able to duplicate and seamlessly migrate workloads when one environment fails. Effective multi-cloud management allows that to happen.

Centralization is key in Multi-Cloud Management

The most common way of reducing complexity in multi-cloud environments is by centralizing management over the entire infrastructure. The idea is to reduce the number of management interfaces across all clouds to one and manage everything from a single pane of glass. Cloud management platforms and similar tools are typically used for this purpose. It’s also crucial to pick multi-cloud ready solutions. One of the most common uses of cloud environments is the deployment of virtual applications and desktops.

multi-cloud management

Challenges 

Although multi-cloud management has undeniable benefits, it can be challenging to implement. Here are some of the potential roadblocks to implementing a management solution:

  • Increased complexity: This is the most basic challenge of a multi-cloud approach and one that multi-cloud management is designed to address. Multi-cloud environments are inherently more complex, and it can be difficult to get a handle on that complexity to implement an effective management solution.
  • Integration between different software environments: For effective multi-cloud management, businesses must build applications that can move across environments without integration issues, which is a difficult task considering the differences between each cloud platform. As mentioned before, containers are a new technology designed to circumvent this challenge, providing easier portability between different public cloud providers.

Conclusion

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. With the availability of a comprehensive multi-cloud management platform, enterprises can significantly reduce their dependency on a single provider and utilize the best of cloud services.

Knowledge

Other Articles

What is a Peer to Peer VPN (P2P VPN)?

Peer-to-peer servers have acquired a somewhat unsavory... Oct 3, 2024

Site to Site VPN: Do you need one?

Imagine a multinational corporation sharing confidential data... Oct 2, 2024

What is a Remote Access VPN?

Hybrid and remote work have now firmly... Oct 1, 2024

What is an Access Control List (ACL)?

Access Control Lists (ACLs) are among the... Sep 30, 2024

What is a Remote Access Trojan (RAT)?

Trojan attacks are some of the most... Sep 29, 2024

Remote Access: Everything you need to know

Connections matter for every business and individual,... Sep 28, 2024

VPN Kill Switch: Why do you need it?

Virtual private networks — more commonly known... Sep 27, 2024

What is a Dynamic Multipoint VPN (DMVPN)?

A dynamic multipoint VPN offers organizations an... Sep 26, 2024

Related posts

What is a Peer to Peer VPN (P2P VPN)?

Peer-to-peer servers have acquired a somewhat unsavory reputation over the years. A Peer to Peer...

Site to Site VPN: Do you need one?

Imagine a multinational corporation sharing confidential data between its headquarters in New York and its...

What is a Remote Access VPN?

Hybrid and remote work have now firmly established themselves in the work patterns of companies...