Going Multi-Cloud: 5 Tips for Maximizing a Multi-Cloud Strategy

5 Jul 2022 by Datacenters.com Multicloud

There are various reasons a multicloud strategy gets pursued: Redundancy against unexpected outages, decreasing costs for storage and other technical features, application performance on one cloud platform versus another, and independence from cloud vendor lock-in are all important factors.

As organizations try to accommodate the cloud infrastructure of the companies they buy, multicloud may not be a strategy but rather a predicament in which an organization has found itself. This issue is a regular occurrence following the merging of two companies whose differing cloud environments inadvertently create a multi vendor cloud strategy overnight. One organization may utilize Amazon web services while the other has google cloud, and just like that the main goal of the IT department is to bridge the gap between these two services.

Whatever brought an organization from a single cloud provider to multiple clouds, when addressing and managing multicloud setups, it is critical to keep a few things in mind, such as the following:

Establish a Comprehensive Access Control Plan

Security should be the first and main priority in every instance of cloud adoption. In a multicloud environment, security becomes even more important.

Any places that connect the clouds should receive extra attention. IT professionals should ensure that the systems can authenticate users, track and log changes, employ multi-factor authentication, and manage logins with role-based access controls. Without taking these steps, you're multi cloud environment will never be as secure as it needs to be in order to operate at maximum efficiency.

Automate Wherever Possible

There's an old adage popular in the IT world: if you are doing something twice, automate it. Similarly, automating the most time-consuming aspects of cloud management, such as patching, vulnerability scanning, and networking, will save IT teams a significant amount of time.

Automation speeds up these time-consuming operations, reduces human error, and frees up IT workers to focus on more important projects that contribute more meaningfully to your organizational goals. Managing multiple public clouds is already time consuming enough without getting bogged down in busy work.

Understand Cloud Resiliency and Failover

Having a credible IT disaster recovery strategy for the redundancy of all data sets and critical applications is related to resiliency. Failover in cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-IaaS, co-location, disaster recovery as a service, and backup as a service are examples of this.

The correct architecture and uniform testing are required to enable such transit between environments.

Choosing the Right Interface

To simplify multicloud management, having a single pane of glass to handle all cloud environments is critical. To get there, choose a technology that can bring all of your domains together in one place for easier management, real-time monitoring, and orchestration.

As a company adopts a multi-cloud approach, its footprint may expand, and operations may get more complex as the environment grows. This growth is where cloud solution providers may assist in keeping environments optimized in terms of both performance and cost.

Knowing the Compliance Requirements

When auditors come knocking, businesses must demonstrate their IT position. Failure to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements could result in expensive fines, lawsuits, and lost business, among other things.

Some compliance frameworks stipulate that user data must not leave the country, while others specify that you must store data in certain areas. When data gets stored in one regional location versus another, corporations can sometimes dodge certain regulatory requirements. As a result, it is critical to thoroughly comprehend the applicable compliance frameworks and take actions to meet those requirements in multi-cloud settings.

Conclusion

Multi-cloud systems are becoming increasingly popular, and this trend shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

As multi-cloud strategies grow more entrenched in all businesses, it is more important than ever to ensure that you can optimize your multi-cloud strategy while protecting and securing your most strategic resource: your data.

Contact Datacenters.com today for a free demo to see how easy a multicloud deployment can be for your organization. Don’t have time for a demo? Spin up servers in a matter of minutes and customize your environment.

Author

Datacenters.com Multicloud

Datacenters.com provides consulting and engineering support around multicloud and has developed a platform for multicloud deployments from the leading data center cloud providers. In just 2-3 minutes you can create and submit a customized cloud RFP that will automatically engage you and your business with industry leading multicloud providers.

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