In the last decade, the demand for cloud services has skyrocketed. In fact, according to an article by DevOps.com, 86% of organizations will adopt a multi-cloud strategy by 2023.  In the multi-cloud approach, organizations are empowered with the independence to select the right cloud computing environment as per their business requirements. Additionally, a multi-cloud strategy allows organizations to allocate workloads across different service providers as and when the need arises. This cloud strategy is not only cost-saving but also acts as a performance enhancer and offers better scalability.

What is a multi-cloud strategy?

In the multi-cloud strategy, two or more cloud service providers are employed for various organization needs. For instance, one cloud vendor can be leveraged for messaging services while other vendors can be used for analytics. This strategy is similar to a hybrid cloud environment with the only difference being that hybrid cloud adoption combines public cloud and private cloud or on-prem infrastructure. 

 

How to prepare for a multi-cloud strategy?

The widespread adoption of the multi-cloud strategy is an indication that multi-cloud is here to stay. Having said that, long-term adoption of multi-cloud is going to demand a robust organizational strategy. The following are key considerations that organizations should keep in mind while deploying a multi-cloud strategy:

  1. The Infrastructure/Platform/Software-as-a-Service rolled out initially helped organizations understand the nitty-gritty of the cloud environment, however, this model led to many interpretations and opinions. For example, many organizations think that the security framework of AWS is better than Azure, which is not exactly right. Admittedly, AWS has a rich set of instances type geared towards different application profiles, Azure also offers a similar framework, however, they are slightly different from that of AWS. This is why understanding the services offered by different cloud service providers is key to setting up a well-rounded multi-cloud strategy.
  2. Enterprises nowadays have two cloud management strategy to choose from:
     
    1. Using the cloud service provider’s console, CLI, and API. Although, this seems like a viable option, however, it limits the scope to single cloud vendor.
    2. Using a third-party organization to offer consoles, CLI, and APIs.

Although, the third-party approach seems the right option, it has its limitations too. Admittedly, this approach takes care of addressing lock-in concerns, most organizations use native management functionalities of cloud service providers.

  1. Organizations adopting a multi-cloud approach must develop deep skills to keep up with the multi-cloud migration process.

 

Conclusion

Cloud computing is here to stay and well, and a multi-cloud adoption is the order of the day. In order to stay on top, organizations must develop a structured training program to keep up with the latest trends. A migration policy that allows organizations to choose the right cloud service providers should be formulated to ease the process.