FEATURE
TRAVERSING THE MULTI-CLOUD WORLD HERE IS A HANDY CHECKLIST FOR YOUR MULTI-CLOUD STRATEGY
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or many enterprises, the move to multi-cloud environments is inevitable as they seek to avoid vendor lock-in and accelerate innovation and better failover options. According to the latest IDC forecast, over 90 percent of enterprises worldwide will be relying on a mix of on-premises/ dedicated private clouds, multiple public clouds, and legacy platforms to meet their infrastructure needs. Distributing workloads across multi-cloud environments offers IT organisations an opportunity to optimise costs, negotiate favourable SLAs and customise capacity. While uptake of multi-cloud architecture has started to gain momentum, IDC notes that not all businesses are sufficiently prepared to implement cloud roadmaps due to migration and skills-related challenges.
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CXO INSIGHT ME
OCTOBER 2021
The research firm advises businesses to take stock of their applications and develop a phased modernisation roadmap for each one, thereby enabling them to make appropriate cloud decisions for the multi-cloud era. What are the top challenges in the adoption of a multi-cloud strategy? The key challenges in adopting a multi-cloud strategy include lack of testing, cost control, and poor governance. “A common pitfall during cloud implementation is to migrate several business areas at once, without testing applications first. For instance, it is wiser to begin migrating a smaller area, such as the business’ email system, before shifting large volumes of sensitive data. Another common blunder is trying to force fit on-site applications for use on the cloud, which may eventually prevent them from running at full
capacity. Instead, it may be logical to thoroughly consider how an application functions and how the cloud may be able to support this,” says Stephen Gill, Academic Head of the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Dubai. He adds that handling ongoing subscription and ad-hoc service costs can be quite challenging with just a single cloud approach. Ensuring control over costs and cloud service usage is even more when relying on multiple cloud providers. A multi-cloud environment can be expensive if not managed effectively. A successful multi-cloud strategy is only realised when the enterprise has visibility over consumption patterns for optimisation of resources and cost savings. Paulo Pereira, Senior Director, Systems Engineering – METI at
