DevOps.com

Where the world meets DevOps

  • Home
  • Features
  • Neighborhoods
    • Cloud
    • Continuous Delivery
    • Continuous Testing
    • DevSecOps
    • Leadership Suite
    • Practices
    • ROELBOB
    • Toolbox
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming
    • On-Demand
  • Library
  • Chat
  • News
  • Authors
  • Directory
  • About
  • Related Sites
    • Container Journal
    • DevOps Connect
    • DevOps Dozen
    • DevOps Institute
    • Microservices Journal
    • Security Boulevard

Home » Blogs » DevOps in the Cloud » Evaluating a Multi-Cloud Strategy: The Pros and Cons

Evaluating a Multi-Cloud Strategy

Evaluating a Multi-Cloud Strategy: The Pros and Cons

By Jay Chapel on June 26, 2018 2 Comments

First off, let’s define multi-cloud. Clearly, we’re talking about using one or more clouds, but clouds come in different flavors. For example, multi-cloud incorporates the idea of hybrid cloud—a mix of public and private clouds. But multi-cloud can also mean two or more public clouds or two or more private clouds.

 
Recent Posts By Jay Chapel
  • Cloud Waste To Hit Over $14 Billion in 2019
  • Can You Implement DevOps in Large Organizations?
  • Cloud Computing and the Concept of DevFinOps
More from Jay Chapel
Related Posts
  • BMC SURVEY: New Management Approaches, Intelligent Capabilities are Required for Multi-Cloud Environments
  • Evolving Data Requirements in Multi-Cloud Environments
  • IBM Survey: Rise of Multi-Cloud Computing to Force DevOps Issue
    Related Categories
  • Blogs
  • DevOps in the Cloud
    Related Topics
  • AWS
  • cloud services
  • Google Cloud
  • Microsoft Azure
Show more
Show less
 

So, why is this important? Over the past year or so, I’ve seen a major increase in the amount of companies who use multiple public clouds. In fact, more than 20 percent of ParkMyCloud’s customers use multiple public clouds. With this trend in mind, I think it is time to take a look at the positives of a multi-cloud strategy. But I also want to mention the negatives—because, of course, there’s no “easy button.”

 

According to the “RightScale 2018 State of the Cloud Report,” more than 80% percent of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy:

 

 

What are the Advantages of Multi-Cloud?

 

So, why are businesses heading in this direction with their infrastructure? Simple reasons include the following:

 
     
  • Risk mitigation—create resilient architectures.
  •  
  • Managing vendor lock-in—get price protection.
  •  
  • Optimization—place your workloads to optimize for cost and performance.
  •  
  • Cloud providers’ unique capabilities—take advantage of offerings in AI, IOT, machine learning and more.
  •  
 

When I asked our CTO what he sees as the advantages of a multi-cloud strategy, he highlighted risk management. Our own platform was born in the cloud, so we run on AWS. We also have a multi-region architecture with redundancy (let’s call this “multi-cloud light”) and if we went multi-cloud, we would leverage another public cloud for risk mitigation.

 

Specifically, he mentioned risk management from the perspective of one vendor having an infrastructure meltdown or attack. AWS had an issue about 15 months ago year when S3 was offline in US-East-1 region for more than five hours, affecting many companies large and small. Software from web apps to smartphones apps were affected (including ours). Certain AWS regions also have been the target of DDoS attacks that have affected service availability.

 

Having a backup to another cloud service provider (CSP) or private cloud in these cases could have ensured 100 percent uptime. In the case of Alibaba and other cloud vendors, they may have a much stronger presence in certain geographic regions due to a long-term presence. When any vendor gets a toe-hold in a region, its environment has minimal redundancy and safeguards in place that provide the desired high availability; in this case, another provider in the same region may be safer from an availability perspective.

 

What are the Disadvantages of Multi-Cloud?

 

Now let’s say you want to go multi-cloud: What does this mean to you? From our own experience integrating with AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, we’ve seen that each cloud has its own set of interfaces and own challenges. It is not a “write once, run everywhere” situation between the vendors, and any cloud or network management utility system must do the work to provide deep integration with each CSP.

 

Further, the nuances of configuring and managing each CSP require both broad and deep knowledge, and it is rare to find employees with the essential expertise for multiple clouds, so more staff is needed to manage multi-cloud with confidence that it is being done in a way that is both secure and highly available. With everyone trying to play catch-up with AWS—and with AWS itself evolving at a breakneck pace—it is very difficult for an individual or organization to best utilize one CSP, let alone multiple clouds.

 

A common container environment, for example, can help mitigate these issues somewhat by isolating engineers from the nuances of virtual machine management; however, the issues of network, infrastructure, cost optimization, security and availability remain very CSP-specific.

 

On paper, there are advantages of having a multi-cloud strategy. In practice—like many things—it’s not as easy as it may seem.

  
Sponsored Content
Featured eBook
The Application Security Guide for Modern Operations Teams

The Application Security Guide for Modern Operations Teams

There’s no question – operations teams have seen major benefits from DevOps. Yet, many security teams are still stuck relying on true-but-tired defensive measures from the days of slow moving IT, while operations has radically transformed into a fast-moving IT delivery pipeline. However, there is a better way for both ... Read More
 

Filed Under: Blogs, DevOps in the Cloud Tagged With: AWS, cloud services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure

  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
« Get Serious About Building Out Your Ecosystem of Developers
DOES UK: Nike Applies ‘Just Do It’ Attitude to DevOps »

Newsletter Sign-up

  • View DevOps.com Privacy Policy

RSS Container Journal

  • 5 Key Considerations for Managed Kubernetes
  • Latest Container Vulnerabililty Creates Another Tempest in a Security Teapot
  • IBM Uses Kubernetes to Run Watson Apps on Any Cloud
  • What is Knative, and What Can It Do for You?
  • NeuVector Extends Container Security Reach to Service Meshes

RSS Security Boulevard

  • WordPress Sites Hacked Through Vulnerable Payment Forms Plug-in
  • What is Data in Vicinity?
  • Consumer Privacy in Question Over Ring Video Files
  • New Shlayer Malware Variant Targeting Macs
  • DevOps Chat: Shifting DevSec Left with ShiftLeft – RSAC Edition

Upcoming Webinars

Wed 20

Reaching Cloud Utopia: How to Create a Single Pipeline for Hybrid Deployments

Wed, February 20, 11:00 am - 12:00 pm EST
Thu 21

The Ultimate Application Monitoring Guide for Kubernetes

Thu, February 21, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EST
Thu 21

How Autodesk Delivers Seamless Customer Experience with Catchpoint

Thu, February 21, 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EST

More Webinars

Past Webinars

Download Free eBook

The Application Security Guide for Modern Operations Teams
The Application Security Guide for Modern Operations Teams

RSS DevOps Chat

  • Serverless App Building Made Easy w/ Ashu Agarwal, Nimbella
  • Mainframe DevOps Update w/ Chris O'Malley
  • Shifting DevSec Left with ShiftLeft /RSAC Special
  • DisruptOps: SecurityOps Disrupted / Special RSAC Edition
  • DevSecOps @ RSA Conference with James Wickett and Shannon Lietz

Past Webinars

DevOps.com Webinar ReplaysDevOps.com Webinar Replays
  • Home
  • Business Directory
  • About DevOps.com
  • Write for DevOps.com
  • Media Kit
  • Sponsor Info
  • Copyright
  • TOS
  • Privacy Policy

© 2019 ·MediaOps Inc.All rights reserved.

    • Twitter
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • YouTube
    • RSS Feed
  • Home
  • Features
  • Neighborhoods
    • Cloud
    • Continuous Delivery
    • Continuous Testing
    • DevSecOps
    • Leadership Suite
    • Practices
    • ROELBOB
    • Toolbox
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming
    • On-Demand
  • Library
  • Chat
  • News
  • Authors
  • Directory
  • About
  • Related Sites
    • Container Journal
    • DevOps Connect
    • DevOps Dozen
    • DevOps Institute
    • Microservices Journal
    • Security Boulevard
  • Home
  • Business Directory
  • About DevOps.com
  • Write for DevOps.com
  • Media Kit
  • Sponsor Info
  • Copyright
  • TOS
  • Privacy Policy
Our website uses cookies. By continuing to browse the website you are agreeing to our use of cookies. For more information on how we use cookies and how you can disable them, please read our Privacy Policy.