Multi-Cloud Environment

Most organizations in today’s market have deployed multi-cloud environments, but many companies have found integrating data sources and applications in these infrastructures challenging. Enterprises may fail to carry out data initiatives without a committed plan of action and a strategy for overcoming the difficulties of integrating various cloud-based data streams.

What Does The Term “Multi-Cloud” Mean?

A multi-cloud strategy uses multiple cloud providers to host an organization’s infrastructure, applications, and data in a single environment. Multi-clouding is utilized by more than one of the primary public cloud hosts, such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, or Microsoft Azure. 

However, multi-cloud architecture can also include other cloud service providers. Utilizing resources from various cloud hosts, such as an Azure processing engine and a different cloud host’s database, is common in multi-cloud integrations.

Today’s best practices include utilizing the best resources from various cloud providers as part of multi-cloud initiatives. Nevertheless, because multi-cloud and hybrid cloud refer to two different aspects of cloud computing, it’s crucial to distinguish between them. Hybrid clouds combine cloud and on-premises systems instead of multi-cloud use cases, which depend on multiple cloud providers.

Using a public cloud in conjunction with a private cloud or a multi-tenant cloud in conjunction with a single-tenant cloud are two other ways hybrid clouds can be used, despite the most common hybrid clouds share resources between, for example, one on-premise environment and one cloud application. 

However, multi-clouds can be hybrid clouds if different cloud providers and different cloud types are used in the environment.

Best practices to manage your multi-cloud environment

Managing a multi-cloud environment can be trickier than managing a single cloud environment because different public cloud services have different feature sets and access protocols.

The following are a few best practices to manage a multi-cloud environment:

  • Prepare With Attainable Objectives

Preparation is essential to be in a position where you can benefit from multiple clouds. When there is no exact match, prioritize your requirements and understand which platform is best for each application.

To successfully migrate to a multi-cloud environment, you’ll need the right people with the right skill sets and goals for the next three years. These objectives ought to be adaptable to consider the changing cloud environment.

  • Protect The Network

Many businesses that operate in a single cloud environment take the “castle and moat” approach to network security, which entails securing the network’s perimeter and assuming that traffic flowing within it is acceptable.

Because you no longer have control over the network perimeter when using a multi-cloud strategy, you must also secure the internal network. Businesses that have reconsidered their approaches to network security have discovered that the security of their entire IT environment has increased.

  • Collect & Consolidate Data

A cloud management platform that can access data from all sources and consolidate it so you can view it in a single pane of glass is required to gather and consolidate data across multiple clouds.

Companies that have trouble adopting multiple clouds frequently rely on the management tools and reporting systems provided by the cloud provider, which results in fragmented data sets that make it difficult to get a clear picture of your cloud ecosystem.

  • Evaluate Environments As One 

Multi-cloud management platforms allow you to evaluate various cloud environments as if they were one, providing you with a clear picture of your cloud ecosystem. This makes it easier for you to define governance, identify inefficiencies, and raise security issues.

Having all your data in one location can improve trend analysis, forecasting, planning, and budgeting. Reporting has also been simplified to help you quickly respond to inquiries about usage, performance, security, and cost.

  • Optimize & Right-Size

This is a crucial best practice in any cloud environment. It is much more challenging to implement without a full set of metrics that provide you with complete visibility of your multi-cloud environment. Without complete visibility, it is more challenging to spot over-provisioned resources and zombie assets.

But cost reduction is just one aspect of optimization. Additionally, you must optimize performance, which is a challenge if various parts of the same application are hosted on multiple clouds. You can gain a better understanding of your assets with the aid of a multi-cloud management platform.

  • Automate Tasks wherever possible

Because managing a multi-cloud environment is challenging, you should use policy-driven automation whenever it makes sense. The management role is streamlined by developing policies that notify you of rising costs, over/underutilized resources, and asset misconfiguration.

Concerns about staff disobeying cloud security policies can be alleviated by policy-driven automation.

  • Schedule Tasks As Soon As You Can

Scheduling scripts establish a recurring pattern for reviewing resource usage and looking into non-critical security events, which is a standard best practice among businesses with a presence in the cloud. Additionally, it can significantly lower cloud costs by planning start-stop times for non-production resources.

One of the biggest causes of cloud waste is leaving non-production resources running when they are not needed. Writing scheduling scripts is one way to address this problem, but setting start-stop times using a cloud management platform is more practical and flexible.

Conclusion 

Organizations can increase scalability, maintain security, and implement disaster recovery by investing in a multi-cloud environment. However, making the most of cloud service providers’ services requires effective multi-cloud management.