Multi-cloud strategy

Key Benefits

Flexibility, redundancy, cost optimization, improved latency, and increased agility.

Market Context

Highly competitive cloud market involving major players like AWS and GCP.

Core Definition

The intentional use of two or more public cloud providers to craft business solutions.

Primary Objective

Avoiding vendor lock-in and capitalizing on unique strengths of various platforms.

Operational Requirements

Common governance models, automation, and centralized security policies.

2024-04-09

## What’s a multi-cloud strategy? A multi-cloud strategy is the intentional use of two or more public cloud providers to craft the best solution for your business needs. The providers you choose, the applications you select, and the tools and policies you use to manage them will all depend on your specific business needs. [...] As cloud adoption matures, organizations are no longer tied to a single provider. Many are choosing a multi-cloud strategy to meet diverse business, technical, and compliance needs. This approach offers flexibility, allowing you to cherry-pick best-in-class services from leading companies while simultaneously making your cloud infrastructure more resilient. In this guide, we lay out what a multi-cloud strategy is and explore the benefits and challenges of adopting this approach. [...] Many cloud providers offer deals and flexible pricing, and a multi-cloud strategy allows you to shop around for the best deals to suit you. Automation can also help you manage costs. Software can detect unused or little-used resources and take them offline when you no longer need them, so you’re not paying for what you don’t use. It can also help you identify the provider with the best price for each application at any given time. ### Applications that suit your needs

A multi-cloud strategy involves utilizing multiple cloud providers to avoid dependency on a single vendor and to capitalize on the unique strengths of various platforms. This approach is becoming increasingly important as businesses seek flexibility in selecting services that best fit their unique needs, thereby driving innovation and efficiency. Distributing workloads across various cloud environments enhances resilience and improves the ability to dynamically scale storage and processing [...] A multi-cloud strategy leverages multiple cloud providers to enhance flexibility, reliability, and performance, while avoiding vendor lock-in. Key benefits include improved redundancy, cost optimization, and increased agility, allowing organizations to adapt quickly to changing requirements and optimize resource utilization. [...] ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is a multi-cloud strategy? A multi-cloud strategy involves leveraging cloud services from various providers to enhance workload distribution and increase operational flexibility. This approach enables businesses to avoid vendor lock-in and optimize their IT resources effectively. ### What are the key benefits of adopting a multi-cloud strategy?

By leveraging the unique strengths of multiple cloud providers, organizations can speed up their digital transformation efforts. Multi-cloud strategies empower organizations to adopt cutting-edge technologies such as AI, machine learning, and IoT, integrating them into their operations. This flexibility allows organizations to modernize legacy systems, improve operational efficiency, and rapidly roll out innovative products or services. ### Improving Latency for Global Audiences [...] ### Combating Shadow IT Multi-cloud strategies can address shadow IT by centralizing cloud governance and providing visibility into all cloud usage across an organization. By offering secure, sanctioned multi-cloud environments, companies can reduce the need for unsanctioned tools or services while still meeting diverse team requirements. Centralized policies and monitoring ensure compliance and security, while providing flexibility for innovation within controlled boundaries. [...] Multi-cloud refers to the use of multiple cloud computing services in a single architecture. This approach leverages the benefits of various public and private clouds to optimize efficiency and flexibility. By incorporating services from different cloud providers, organizations can tailor their IT infrastructure to specific needs, ensuring improved performance, cost management, and risk diversification. This strategy is not tied to any single vendor, which offers considerable scope for

## Why use a multicloud strategy? By having the freedom to move your applications, you can directly control cost, uptime, latency, and downtime, which all directly impact your customers’ experience. On the enterprise side, using a multicloud strategy allows you to avoid vendor lock-in, allowing you to find the cloud products and services that bring the most value. If your organization cares about any of the following, you’re probably a good candidate for a multicloud strategy: [...] A multicloud strategy enables you to deploy and scale workloads while also implementing security policies and compliance technologies consistently across all of your workloads, regardless of service, vendor, or environment. ### Increased reliability and redundancy [...] A multicloud strategy should take into consideration business requirements, design and development drivers, and any architecture constraints that may arise from existing systems. It’s vital to take the time to clearly define your goals in a vision statement that outlines the reasons you want to migrate your current computing environment, the primary metrics you want to optimize for with the public cloud, and the long-term plan for using a multicloud setup in your organization. From there, you