Public cloud adoption continues to accelerate. Enterprises are increasingly using multiple cloud services to make full use of the benefit that each cloud provider offers. With more enterprises embracing this multi-cloud model, they need to understand how to connect their clouds and manage them to unleash their full potential.
Utilising an advanced multi-cloud service can be the key to solving enterprise challenges in the cloud, as well as simplifying operations, application performance and keeping up in a changing market. According to Gartner, the proportion of enterprise IT spending that is shifting to cloud is on the rise due to COVID-19, with cloud projected to make up 14.2% of the total global enterprise IT spending market in 2024, up from 9.1% in 2020.
Why Are Enterprises Implementing a Multi-Cloud Strategy?
Enterprises must be able to scale up or down according to varying market demands. While public cloud platforms provided by hyperscalers provide this agility and scalability, enterprises may have limited choices in terms of regions and availability zones. They will also have to consider being locked-in with a single cloud provider and other challenges associated with cost management and data sovereignty.
A multi-cloud approach can include a mixture of on-premise/private clouds, public clouds, and even legacy platforms to ensure performance, security and 24/7 availability.
A solid multi-cloud strategy can provide enterprises with the following:
- Agility – Improve workload mobility between clouds and move faster to meet demands. 2020 proved that the ability to be agile is essential to business continuity and adapting to new market conditions. A multi-cloud strategy can allow enterprises to benefit from agility and better workload mobility.
- Freedom of Choice – Enterprises are able to use the cloud services that best suit their requirements and better manage cloud costs. Multi-cloud gives enterprises the freedom to access multiple options and locations. They can compare different providers and secure the best rates suited to their specific IT needs.
- Flexibility and Scalability – Enterprises can flexibly scale storage and compute based on their transforming needs and fluctuating demands.
- Better Performance – Multi-cloud connectivity is high-speed and low-latency, as well as being more cost-efficient. Multi-cloud adoption can help enterprises achieve greater efficiencies and establish a resilient standard of network infrastructure.
- Mitigating Risk – Enterprises can build redundancy in the event of an attack or downtime. They can mitigate risk through multi-cloud solutions offering redundant, independent systems with robust authentication mechanisms.
- No Vendor Lock-In – Enterprises can enjoy the benefits of multiple cloud providers and switch when needed. They can harness the power of the cloud and get the most value out of their partnership with any cloud service provider.
A Flexible Future
A multi-cloud networking solution should not just connect an enterprise’s network to cloud gateways and leave open the inherent challenges of networking and security within the cloud. It should provide a flexible and consistent multi-cloud design that supports their cloud transformation.
The right multi-cloud solution can deliver a network platform with the simplicity, automation, operational visibility and control that enterprises need. It should provide a solid yet flexible foundation for the future, moving enterprises from basic cloud connectivity to advanced end-to-end multi-cloud network architecture.
Utilising a multi-cloud model can be the key to solving enterprise challenges in the cloud, as well as enhancing operations, application performance and helping to keep up in a changing market. With more interworking between clouds in a private environment, enterprises need to find a provider that can offer the simplest model for connecting multiple clouds, distributing resources, mitigating downtime and minimising data loss risk. Additionally, having an array of features and capabilities that can enable their growth in the cloud without limits.
